[Deck] ANT (Ad Nauseam Tendrils) [Archive] - Page 17

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Tombstalker

08-29-2012, 05:31 PM

Tammit67- didnt think of siding the tutor, the idea is alot more appealing now actually.
Also Rampart you gave me lyrics for a new rock tune man.."cant grind the skull!" dundun da tzzz tzzz

emidln

08-29-2012, 05:45 PM

I've been playing this list and haven't found CB Miracles to be all that tough:

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress

3 Snapcaster Mage

4 Infernal Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Past in Flames

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe

2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Volcanic Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire

SB: 3 Wipe Away
SB: 3 Karakas
SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Duress
SB: 3 Virtue's Ruin
SB: 2 Chain of Vapor
SB: 2 Engineered Explosives

Sideboard plan vs Miracles has been:

-1 Lotus Petal
-1 Lion's Eye Diamond
-2 Snapcaster Mage
-1 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Ad Nauseam

+1 Duress
+3 Wipe Away
+2 Engineered Explosives

Sideboard plan vs Maverick has been:

-3 Snapcaster Mage
-3 Duress
-4 Cabal Therapy

+2 Engineered Explosives
+2 Chain of Vapor
+3 Karakas
+3 Virtue's Ruin

If I see or suspect Mindbreak Trap, I keep in Cabal Therapy and don't bring EE/Chain of Vapor (they're less likely to have Canonist it seems if they run Mindbreak Trap).

RUG Delver goes something like:

-1 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Ad Nauseam
+1 Duress
+1 Tendrils of Agony

Reanimator (I have a plan w/ and w/o Snapcaster, not sure which I like best)

-3 Snapcaster Mage
-1 Gitaxian Probe
+3 Karakas
+1 Duress

or with Snapcaster Mage:

-4 Gitaxian Probe
+1 Duress
+3 Karakas

aaronm678

08-29-2012, 06:31 PM

I've been playing this list and haven't found CB Miracles to be all that tough:

EE is pretty interesting, I'll have to try that -- seems pretty sweet in one of the board wipe slots. I tried Wipe Away against U/W for a while, and never really liked it all that much, as you basically get to the point where you have to get Wipe Away + 2 Discard effects in hand + enough gas to go off, all while not being able to cantrip at all. I've tried a second Tendrils in the SB in the past, I will start testing that again (I remember it being sweet in some easy matchups as well, such as Landstill and Burn and such).

Do you ever have problems finding gas with that list? It seems pretty durdly to run 3 Snapcasters and only 4 Tutors + 1 Ad Naus.

emidln

08-29-2012, 07:06 PM

Unless you're facing down discard, Tendrils is a business spell in a deck packed with Probes, Therapies, and Snapcaster Mages. You can also just Snapcaster Mage to buyback a cantrip.

ThomasDowd

08-29-2012, 07:09 PM

Do you ever have problems finding gas with that list? It seems pretty durdly to run 3 Snapcasters and only 4 Tutors + 1 Ad Naus.

with 3 snapcasters the plan is to go long, you will find a tutor eventually. you can even use snapcaster to do it since it re buys you cantrips.

lambert101

08-30-2012, 06:18 PM

The list with.snapcaster seems like a stock UBR lists with snapcaster over burning wish. I like having wish targets. However, I can see the use in flashing back a single spell.

emidln

08-30-2012, 07:35 PM

Maybe you missed the part where my sideboard doesn't suck. Not easy to do with burning wish in the deck.

Tombstalker

08-30-2012, 08:28 PM

emidln- I too missed the part where your sideboard doesnt suck, at least initially..got it now. Only joking man I do really like your current board. Anyway how often do you find you use chain of vapor? I ask because the rest of your board seems to cover those same bases. Also ive toyed with snaps on and off but nothing serious yet so im interested in what the fundamental turn for your build is?

lambert101

08-30-2012, 08:52 PM

Can we discuss pyroblast over yard hate in side?

Tammit67

08-31-2012, 12:27 AM

Maybe you missed the part where my sideboard doesn't suck. Not easy to do with burning wish in the deck.

It is absolutely something I am going to test. It looks great for what I'd expect to face

lambert101

08-31-2012, 02:08 PM

Switched back to Inquisition of Kozilek over Pyroblast in my side. Still not sure if that is correct or should have Pithing Needle. So current board looks like:

4 Dread of Night
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Echoing Truth
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Meltdown
1 Pyroclasm
2 Karakas

Taking an idea from Bryant Cook on the two Karakas.

12 Cards against Maverick (including wish target Pyroclasm)

4 Cards against RUG (including wish target Pyroclasm)

6 Cards against Tribal (including wish target Pyroclasm)

5 Cards Against Show and Tell/Reanimator/Grislebrand.dec

Let me know your thoughts. Still having problems deciding what to side out.

ThomasDowd

08-31-2012, 02:30 PM

I like pyroblast and have moved to 2. no testign yet but it forces them to have the force.

I don't think burning wish kills your board that much, it at most eats up 5-6 spots in the board: (EtW, ToA, PiF and/or IGG, IT, a sweeper, maybe an artifact sweeper if you want it)

If your plan is to board 12 cards in against maverick and they don't win you the game faster you are doing it wrong. they have no counter spells, they don't interact until turn 2 or 3. just kill them.

I do really like EE. need to see if it is good enough

lambert101

08-31-2012, 03:12 PM

I like having the extra insurance against Maverick. For the blue match-ups I am going up to 11 discard post-board. I know that Inquisition cannot grab Force of Will so I am not sure if Thoughtseize maybe better. In those control games, I feel it is a grind and I am much more likely to win with Past in Flames and Tutor chains (kinda ryhmes) than Ad Nauseum. That and the extra discard is pro-active against Counterbalance before it hits.

Clown of Tresserhorn

09-01-2012, 06:49 PM

apistat_commander

09-01-2012, 07:11 PM

emidln

09-01-2012, 07:21 PM

GW maverick is an awful matchup. I feel like the deck isn't fast enough to race a turn 2 hate bear, so we need answers.

Dread was pretty miserable, as they usually have teeg (off GSZ) or cannonist in addition to Thalia.

I think I want 3 deathmark postboard. Thoughts?

Playing 3 Karakas, 2 Chain, 2 EE, 3 Virtue's Ruin makes it pretty hard to lose to Maverick. The most important cards are the Karakas, but Virtue's Ruin definitely helps when you can draw into it. Spot removal is less good now that people are playing Safekeeper in addition to the standard 4 Mother of Runes. Mass removal like EE and Virtue's Ruin, while both having drawbacks (EE is vulnerable to Teeg and Pridemage, Virtue's Ruin often costs 4), having a mix lets you be pretty successful. IMO, their ability to have double threat a good portion of the time makes discard less useful. Chain actually commits them to their mana (meaning an eot turn 2 chain, untap into a turn 3 kill is still okay). Chain and EE also function to deal with random non-creature threats that can show up, while providing a lot of utility in other matchups.

Clown of Tresserhorn

09-01-2012, 07:59 PM

Playing 3 Karakas, 2 Chain, 2 EE, 3 Virtue's Ruin makes it pretty hard to lose to Maverick. The most important cards are the Karakas, but Virtue's Ruin definitely helps when you can draw into it. Spot removal is less good now that people are playing Safekeeper in addition to the standard 4 Mother of Runes. Mass removal like EE and Virtue's Ruin, while both having drawbacks (EE is vulnerable to Teeg and Pridemage, Virtue's Ruin often costs 4), having a mix lets you be pretty successful. IMO, their ability to have double threat a good portion of the time makes discard less useful. Chain actually commits them to their mana (meaning an eot turn 2 chain, untap into a turn 3 kill is still okay). Chain and EE also function to deal with random non-creature threats that can show up, while providing a lot of utility in other matchups.

For real on the 6 dedicated spots to maverick?!?! (I assume EE and chain come in vs. other things) I still like deathmark, as it basically kills everything they have that's relevant. I'm not sure I buy the virtue's ruins, since they're so bad with Ad Naus.

Tombstalker

09-01-2012, 08:53 PM

Playing 3 Karakas, 2 Chain, 2 EE, 3 Virtue's Ruin makes it pretty hard to lose to Maverick.
Thats sick. I bring in 4 dread, 2 echoing truth + wishable sweeper and sometimes I even feel bad about it heh, not anymore.

Clown of Tresserhorn- I agree spot removal (by itself) isnt really viable anymore. emidln's SB is obviously > than mine but what we have in common are cheap sweepers for mom/thalia/mindcensor to keep spot removal active, and then obviously spot removal for teeg. I can see why you dont like DoN but IMO its not meant as a stand alone answer, and not that you said it was. To me though its just a sweeper for B that keeps my spot removal active. If I can stack 2 fine ive probably won, if not it still keeps me from losing to mom + hatebear and kills thalias along the way. I guess my point is if you arent already bringing/wishing into removal for teeg maybe combine the two.

Also virtues ruin is very good, I just really happen to like dread of night plus I dont own any VRs anymore or I might play them too.

emidln

09-01-2012, 09:07 PM

Karakas has applications elsewhere (Reanimator actually has serious issues beating karakas + cabal therapy when you untap). But the way I see it, the following common matchups need help postboard:

Maverick
CB Miracles

I'm fine dedicating 6ish slots to one and 5ish to the other. These are very common draws, and dropping either with consistency is going to affect your ability to do well.

Being able to beat multiple hatebears or hatebear + mom/safekeeper is what lets you cast Ad Nauseam to begin with. Without the first step of removing hatebears + friends, you can't be in a position where Ad Nauseam is good/bad (and, tbh, you can still Past in Flames at a low life total).

lambert101

09-01-2012, 11:17 PM

I think 4 Dread of Night, 2 Echoing Truth, 4 Cabal Therapy, and Pyroclams as a wish target are enough to beat Maverick. I keep ten cantrips in to dig.

Dia_Bot

09-02-2012, 03:05 AM

aaronm678

09-02-2012, 08:10 AM

Maybe it's just because our metagames are different (europe vs USA) but the decks I'm taking into account are RUG, reanimator (and dredge) and maverick.
I would never spend so much slots on maverick especially when you already play discard.

Most of the hate has a TON of overlap -- for example, against RUG, we can't really afford to sideboard a ton, and there isn't really a complete "trump" card we can run, but I think almost everyone is running discard of some sort of discard in their SB, and this is a great matchup to board it in. Against Reanimator, Karakas, Chain of Vapor, and Wipe away are all fine cards to bring in. Against Dredge, we have a good enough matchup here we don't really need to bring in dedicated GY hate, but most of the 1-2 mana bounce is fine here.

That said -- part of the reason I hate Dread of Night is it's a terrible card in every matchup except Maverick, I'd much rather run something I can bring in against every creature deck (Pyroclasm, Infest, Engineered Explosives, etc).

JamieW89

09-02-2012, 08:32 AM

How about a green splash in that UB list? It gives you something against RUG (Carpet), a better Wipe Away against Miracles (Grip) and a decent card against Merfolk, Show & Tell/Reanimate (Swarm).

4 Infernal Tutor
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe

4 Dark Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Cabal Ritual

2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs

// Sideboard:
3 Xantid Swarm
3 Carpet of Flowers
3 Karakas
2 Krosan Grip
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Meta-slots

aaronm678

09-02-2012, 10:31 AM

How about a green splash in that UB list? It gives you something against RUG (Carpet), a better Wipe Away against Miracles (Grip) and a decent card against Merfolk, Show & Tell/Reanimate (Swarm).

Have you ever actually tested Carpet against RUG? It seems much sweeter than it actually plays out, in my opinion. I actually played a G splash for some time before PiF came out, and I desperately wanted Carpet to be good, but more often then not, I was wishing it was a Thoughtseize or something. Given, RUG lists have changed a bit, and they're much more likely to run Spell Pierce than Snare at the moment, but I still don't think it's particularly strong. Also, if I had to guess, I would say your list has a VERY poor Maverick matchup, you'll lose almost every G1, and you don't really have that much to bring in against them.

Also, I don't think we can get away without any R producing lands, I think your list really needs to cut a Snapcaster for a Volcanic (also, I'm assuming it was a typo, but your plains needs to be an island).

lambert101

09-02-2012, 02:16 PM

I still need to test my board plans for Maverick, RUG, and Miracles but in theory they seem good.

Karakas, Dread of Night, Echoing Truth, and Pyroclam as a wish target seem amazing against Maverick.

Against miracles I side into 11 discard spells and 2 echoing truth for tokens.

Tammit67

09-02-2012, 08:33 PM

Top 4'd a 28 man local. Beat Omni-Tell, elves, maverick, Double ID, RUG Delver. Lost in the semi's to the infinite hatebears out of Death and Taxes.

SB:
2 Wipe away
1 Echoing truth
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Virtue's ruin
2 Extirpate
1 Infest
1 Cabal therapy
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Karakas

The problem with the above is how unattractive ad nauseam is after adding so many 3 drops to the deck. Wasn't much of an issue thanks to past in flames, however.

lambert101

09-02-2012, 09:58 PM

Congrats. What was your main if you had a Cabal Therapy in the side.

Tammit67

09-02-2012, 10:13 PM

Congrats. What was your main if you had a Cabal Therapy in the side.

2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic island
1 Badlands
2 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding tarn
1 Bloodstained Mire

4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Cabal ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Burning Wish
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony

Completely standard and I loved every inch of it. I've seen others substitute the second Island for a Chrome Mox, but I rarely go for the Ad Nauseam. The basic has been great for me in playing around the myriad of wastelands across from me.

My sideboard worked for me, but I have no attachment to it. I really missed IGG in the board.

lambert101

09-02-2012, 10:21 PM

Tammit67

09-02-2012, 10:30 PM

Do you think Dread of Night would have been worth it against Maverick? I am unsure how I feel about it. I am preparing for Juipter games next weekend and am deciding on Ubr Ant or Miracle Control. I feel Ant like TES is good against tribal decks that are popping up and decent against the usual suspects of RUG, Maverick, Control, and Grislebrand.dec.

The other Storm in the top 8 was running the dread of nights. It was hard for me to fit in both the wish targets and Extirpate and the CB hate. Perhaps if you dismiss the karakas and GY hate you'll find room, however I'm seeing a lot more Gaddock Teeg main with the rise of Miracles. It often requires double Dread of Night to actually silence maverick.

TL;DR- Whatever works for you is best. I couldn't find them in time, else I would have run them as well.

losada

09-03-2012, 02:28 PM

I played a tournament (80 people) last Sunday for a 5-2. My main was the same as emidln one or two pages earlier. My side was:

2 Karakas
2 Engineered explosives
2 Pithing needle
2 Chain of vapor
2 Disfigure
2 Extirpate
1 Echoing truth
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Wipe away

A short report:

R1. Deadguy (0-2). 4 Duress, 4 Hymns, 4 Thalia maindeck. Mulligan in G2 to 5 cards. Hard to beat.

R2. UWB Tempo (2-0). Easy game 1, duress efects and 3 turn combo. Missplay of my opponent in the second game, tapping to play a Geist of Saint Traft, with 1 Pierce, 1 Daze and 1 Fow in hand, plus 1 land.

R3. Show and Tendrils (2-0). Easy games. I kept a hand with 2 duress and 1 therapy in G1, PiF in turn3. G2 resumes in duress+SCM duress+pithing (Griselbrand), Pif in middlegame.

R4. Goblins (2-0). My opponent plays Lackey turn1, and I have a T1 combo (Land, Gitaxian Probe, Ritual, Led, Led, Infernal Tutor, Duress). g2 I had to win via Ad-Nauseam, cause I did not see any LED or Ritual with 2 ponders+2gitaxian.

R5 RUG Tempo (2-1). Loss G1: Delver T1, Daze my duress, Wasteland U.Sea in T2 and 2 Pierces in hand... G2 win with two mini-tendrils (5 and 6 spells in T4 and T6). G3 my opponent makes a missplay. I duress him, seeing L.Bolt, Fow and Delver. He doesn't pay 4 life with Sylvan Library to get a Daze (I think), and combo via PiF with two lands in play, playing 2 Led, infernal, and having only 3 cabal rituals in the graveyard. (If he had taken the Daze, I would not have been able to play the cabal rituals)

R6 RUG Tempo (1-2). My opponent played Stifle, and topdecking one of them give him the first game. G2 he keeps a ver bad hand (T1 delver, T2 goyf, but no fow). I take his brainstorm with my duress, and combo in T3. I`m very unlucky in G3, drawing the Volcanic Island (I need mana to play my Pif from hand next turn). He draws Brainstorm, getting Wasteland to my volcanic, and FOW+Blue card to my PiF.

R7 UW Miracles (2-0). Really easy games, very surprised. Game 1 combo via PiF in turn 3, with the Gitaxian+Cabal Therapy+SCM minicombo. G2 Duress+Therapy early turns, Pithing to Top, extirpate his FOWs, and combo via Ad Nauseam.

As a curiosity, I only win the die roll in Round 2.

Comments and suggestions are welcome!

emidln

09-03-2012, 02:42 PM

How did you feel about the maindeck after playing an event with it?

losada

09-03-2012, 03:54 PM

I liked it very much!!! Mainly for two reasons:

1. It is quite surprising. SCM is very good maindeck, vs Maverick and RUG you can block + brainstorm, getting an extra turn, vs Control you can recycle the duress efects and get 2 or 4 points of damage,

2. The trio Gitaxian Probre+Cabal Therapy+Snapcaster Mage is awesome!!!

lambert101

09-04-2012, 06:52 AM

Did some more testing with the Tombstalker list and my side. So far, it has been good. Dread of night helps to stall maverick to pyroclasm with Teeg out. My only question is if two Karakas are the right call in the side? I was even thinking about dropping the Karakas for a fourth Iok and another wish target.

SaberTooth

09-04-2012, 07:52 AM

i can't beat maverick, it's my curse (not just with ant). Any advice?

Dia_Bot

09-04-2012, 07:57 AM

Yeah, read the posts above yours.

SaberTooth

09-04-2012, 09:51 AM

i'm playing 4 DoN, IoK and pyroclasm :P

emidln

09-04-2012, 10:21 AM

They have at least 10 relevant hatebears (4 Thalia, 1 Teeg, 4 GSZ, 1 Canonist) and maybe more depending on extra Canonists and/or Mindcensors, plus possibly stuff like Stony Silence or Null Rod. You have 4 pieces of removal for Thalia that need to be combined to deal with anything else, and one Pyroclasm, which they'll ignore 40% of the time via Mother of Runes. I wonder why you cannot beat that deck...

tldr; your hate sucks and isn't plentiful enough. Play more and better hate.

SaberTooth

09-04-2012, 11:10 AM

your experience is bigger than mine. I'll search for a better side in this thread or in your posts

lambert101

09-04-2012, 11:17 AM

@ saber
How do you lose with 4 DoN? Just can trip to find them then sculpt while they durdle around trying to use GSZ for pridemage or teeg. Use Echoing truth to bounce Teeg eot and then storm away.

Be more helpful to see your list and boarding plans.

SaberTooth

09-04-2012, 11:23 AM

my list is the same that won ghent, my side is different

maybe i keep bad hands against mav or something, but my bad luck in this particular match is incredible... like... rape his hand and then never draw a tutor to win

lambert101

09-04-2012, 11:29 AM

Just practice I guess. Some people just have cursed match ups. I was wondering how Karakas has been in sideboard? I put two in my board and don't know how I feel about them

Dia_Bot

09-04-2012, 11:53 AM

SaberTooth

09-04-2012, 12:38 PM

Tammit67

09-04-2012, 12:50 PM

Mindlash

09-04-2012, 12:52 PM

Me playing goblins: maverick won
Me playing team italia: maverick won
Me playing tes: maverick won
Me playing ant: maverick won

i'm playing combo decks (tes and ant) as my only decks

G/W tutors.deck it's my nightmare

Maverick vs Gobo is just not winnable for the Maverickplayer..how the heck does he win against you..I am serious here...a friend of mine would appreciate it cuz he gets raped by Gobos all the time.

Ant vs Maverick slightly favors Ant imo. The Gent List is even capable of winning G1 with the redslpash. Only problem here is T1 mother into Teeg.

TES is a bit easier with the higher chances on early kill + the ability to chant-walk maverick.

This might not be true after the next set and the addition of Dryad Militant and Judge's Familiar which worsens our G1 alot. Thanks god they die to Dread of Night postboard.

Greetings Chris

SaberTooth

09-04-2012, 12:57 PM

i can win in other matchs, so my descision tree isn't bad in my opinion. maverick is my nemesis

lambert101

09-04-2012, 07:46 PM

Ok so i need help figuring out boarding plans with the following:

Main:
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic island
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
2 Scalding tarn
2 Bloodstained Mire

4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Cabal ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Burning Wish
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony

Side:
4 Dread of Night
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Echoing Truth
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Meltdown
1 Pyroclasm
2 Karakas (or 2 flex spots)

Still unsure if Tendrils of Agony should be in the main over Empty the Warrens.

aaronm678

09-05-2012, 01:54 AM

To be honest, bad luck happens sometimes but that doesn't mean its related to your list.

Truth be told, lists are overrated.:smile:
So many people spend so much time finding the "perfect" list and discussing every single detail about it without realizing if they spend half that much time on playing with their deck they would be much further along.

In short: play what feels comfortable but fwiw I think 4 DoN (+2 bounce) is enough against maverick.

I agree that the "best" list is the one you've played the most with, but I think it's still worth having discussions about what the best cards are in each slot, especially in a deck like this, where a single card can completely change how the list plays out. Particularly with sideboard slots, as I think it's pretty helpful to discuss what cards are effective in different matchups (Maindeck is a different story...I don't think there's any amount of discussion that is going to convince people of BW vs Grim or Thoughtseize/Preordain vs Gitaxian/Therapy or Tendrils vs EtW, as it really is 100% preference in my opinion)

I think if you can find room for Karakas in your sideboard, you should test it, as it's very good against Maverick. If you're still running a mass artifact hate or mass bounce in the SB, you should probably test Karakas in those slots if you're having trouble against Maverick, unless you have a lot of Stax/Chalice in your meta, as it's much better than Virtue's Ruin or Pyroclasm or Chain of Vapor against them.

lambert101

09-05-2012, 09:59 AM

Tammit67

09-05-2012, 12:21 PM

aaronm678

09-05-2012, 12:46 PM

Did some testing with my list against Miracles. It actually wasn't that bad. Just name Counterbalance with Cabal Therapy. Also Cabal Ritual helps this match up. I would lead out with a one drop then wait to he revealed and respond with Cabal Ritual. Still unsrue about the two Karakas in the side.

Their entire deck is dig + counterspells, it's difficult to discard their CBs and get rid of their hand before they draw another one, in my experience, and it's very difficult to win after CB resolves (yes, you can occasionally mise some wins, but few and far between).

If you don't think the matchup is that bad, you should test it more, it's very easily the worst matchup of any even semi-popular decks (I think I'd honestly rather play against MUD - at least there, we can occasionally race), and I've not found any terribly effective SB cards against them. I think the best plan against them is to a) lose or b) just accept that in half the games you're going to have to play directly into all their spell pierces and counterspells, and accept you need to go off turn 2.

Tammit67

09-05-2012, 01:16 PM

Their entire deck is dig + counterspells, it's difficult to discard their CBs and get rid of their hand before they draw another one, in my experience, and it's very difficult to win after CB resolves (yes, you can occasionally mise some wins, but few and far between).

If you don't think the matchup is that bad, you should test it more, it's very easily the worst matchup of any even semi-popular decks (I think I'd honestly rather play against MUD - at least there, we can occasionally race), and I've not found any terribly effective SB cards against them. I think the best plan against them is to a) lose or b) just accept that in half the games you're going to have to play directly into all their spell pierces and counterspells, and accept you need to go off turn 2.

I've completely smashed CB players with storm before, and then lose in the matchup to Dave Gearhart because he has enough experience to know how hard it is to beat a top in play floating Force of will. I've seen players flash snapcaster in to get a clock going, while others hope to get value out of him and die as a result.

The matchup is very much dependent on how well You/he knows each others lists and what to do. Against someone experienced, it should be difficult to beat. Top is such a beating, and Clique is almost worse

lambert101

09-05-2012, 02:27 PM

Against Miracles I have found post-board having 11-12 discard spells is key to hit Counterbalance. I have also toyed with the idea of shaving the two Karakas for 2 Extirpate to remove Counterbalance or Force of Will after having them discard it.

Anyways, a new spoiler from Return to Ravnica caught my eyes.

Slaughter Games
Slaughter Games can't be countered by spells or abilities.
Name a nonland card. Search target opponent's graveyard, hand, and library for any number of cards with that name and exile them. Then that player shuffles his or her library.

Good bye Force of Will or Counterbalance.

I have also, considered Wipe Away as a 2 of instead of Karakas- deals with Counterbalance and Grislebrand

emidln

09-05-2012, 04:15 PM

You should be playing more than 2 Karakas and more than 2 Wipe Away. It's not any wonder why you have issues with Maverick and Miracles.

lambert101

09-05-2012, 04:18 PM

Any sideboard suggestions?

OurSerratedDust

09-06-2012, 12:09 AM

@emidln: It looks like you're siding out Snapcaster Mage in a lot of the common matchups. Might it be better to simply go -1 Snapcaster, +1 Duress in the maindeck or something along those lines? Just a thought.

Clown of Tresserhorn

09-06-2012, 01:21 AM

Holy shit. Abrupt decay is the new hotness. The counterbalance matchup just got easier.

lambert101

09-06-2012, 09:19 AM

emidln

09-06-2012, 10:36 AM

Wipe Away isn't very good against Maverick. By the time you can actually cast it, they're pretty much guaranteed to have multiple hate bears that you need to deal with. This is why Virtue's Ruin is acceptable (it costs a lot, but kills everything).

Also,

Yay for uncounterable 2 mana removal spells for everything this deck has ever cared about. As much as this card is going to be fucking amazing in my storm decks for a few months, it's a dumb card and is going to result in something I love a lot getting banned.

lambert101

09-06-2012, 10:40 AM

What would get banned?

Also and ideas for a side plan?

apistat_commander

09-06-2012, 10:51 AM

Yay for uncounterable 2 mana removal spells for everything this deck has ever cared about. As much as this card is going to be fucking amazing in my storm decks for a few months, it's a dumb card and is going to result in something I love a lot getting banned.

So does this make the green splash worth looking at again? You get Autumn's Veil as a pseudo-Chant and Carpet of Flowers to blow through taxing counters. In exchange you may be losing more game 1's, lower your threat density, and basically lose the EtW plan though PiF is still probably fine via LED/Petal. So basically you have more game against blue control decks but your fair deck/combo deck MU worsens as you are slowing down and becoming less flexible.

emidln

09-06-2012, 11:11 AM

SaberTooth

09-06-2012, 11:26 AM

i like the idea of green. this new decay seems powerful

Mindlash

09-06-2012, 03:00 PM

Thinking I may have smoothed out the boarding plans:
Main is the same. It is posted awhile back.

4 Dread of Night
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Echoing Truth
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Meltdown
1 Pyroclasm
2 Wipe Away

Maverick:
-4 Duress
-3 Cabal
-4 Gixtaxian Probe

+ 3 Inquisition
+ 4 Dread of Night
+ 2 Echoing Truth
+ 2 Wipe Away

Miracles:
+3 Inquisition of Kozleik
+2 Wipe Away
+2 Echoing Truth
+1 Tendrils of Agony

-1 Empty the Warrens
-1 Infernal Tutor
-4 Gixtaxian Probe
-2 Burning Wish ( I do not think this is correct but do not know what else to take out)

Rug:
Nothing... I feel this match-up is good considering the discard, Past in Flames, Empty the Warrens, and Cabal Therapy.

Show and Tell.dec
-1 Empty the Warrens
-4 Gixtaxian Probe (Don't know if this is right)
-1 Infernal Tutor

+ 1 Tendrils of Agony
+ 2 Wipe Away
+ 3 Inquisition of Kozelik

Basically, I am having a really hard time with side boarding. I wish Timo made his report from GP Ghent so I could see what he did and base my plans off his.

Can't say how he boarded against RUG and Sneak/Show, but against Maverick it is

+2 Inquisition of Kozilek
+4 Dread of Night
+1 IGG
-1 Chrome Mox
-1 Cabal Ritual
-2 Duress
-2 Gitaxian Probe
-1 PiF

and Miracle:

+2 Inquisition of Kozilek
+1 Duress
-1 Chrome Mox
-1 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Cabal Therapy

In general you take IGG over PiF against the non-blue (read non counter decks).

You switch Duress and Inquisition according to what you want to discard (Inquisition over Duress against Goblins and so on)

Cage against Reanimator, Dredge and so on. Dread of Night against the Maverick Hatebears. Rest of the cards are wishboard material.

Good cards to side out are Mox and Probes...though I would never take all the Probes out. Sometimes they help you Therapys out on turn 1 when it matters. They also do work nice along PiF :-)

Perhaps I can post you some information about his boarding for the other two matchups after the weekend, because I intend to play ANT on the tournament in Dortmund on Saturday and tomorrow is BBQ and problably some coaching on schedule ^^

Hope that helps

Mindlash

lambert101

09-06-2012, 03:58 PM

@Mindlash
Thank.you for the help. I plan on playing this deck at a local tourney this weekend and need help side boarding. I like the wipeaways against miracles.

Tammit67

09-06-2012, 04:03 PM

Mon,Goblin Chief

09-06-2012, 04:54 PM

You can do whatever you wish, but I'll be doing this to the 75 I posted:

-3 Wipe Away
-2 Chain of Vapor
-2 Engineered Explosives

+4 Abrupt Decay
+1 Tropical Island
+1 Bayou
+1 Tarpan (okay, maybe a more meaningful free slot)

I probably would also entertain cutting the 2nd Swamp for a 9th fetch in my list, but I am considering that without Abrupt Decay.

Considering access to green, I might also be willing to cut out my sideboarded duress and use the free slot on 2 Xantid Swarm vs merfolk.

My though process on seeing Decay:

Step 1: Oh man, people now have an actual good way to kill my Counterbalances that can go in their maindeck. :(
Step 2: Oh man, when I'm playing storm I just gained access to a two mana answer to Counterbalance, hatebears and Chalice of the Void. The sweetness! :D

Seriously, Decay is definitely worth splashing for out of the board. As emidln said, it deals with every single permanent this deck ever cares about (other than Leyline of Sanctity), it's cheap enough to not totally ruin AdN and they can't even protect their hate with countermagic. Card is bonkers.

aaronm678

09-06-2012, 05:12 PM

My though process on seeing Decay:

Step 1: Oh man, people now have an actual good way to kill my Counterbalances that can go in their maindeck. :(
Step 2: Oh man, when I'm playing storm I just gained access to a two mana answer to Counterbalance, hatebears and Chalice of the Void. The sweetness! :D

Seriously, Decay is definitely worth splashing for out of the board. As emidln said, it deals with every single permanent this deck ever cares about (other than Leyline of Sanctity), it's cheap enough to not totally ruin AdN and they can't even protect their hate with countermagic. Card is bonkers.

Agreed...I think this should also be the end of people running stuff like Echoing Truth or Meltdown or whatnot, as we don't really need Stax-Specific answers anymore, we have a less narrow one now.

It does make our mana pretty awkward, I think the card is much, much worse for Burning Wish versions, as I don't think you can support both splashes (as mentioned, Red for Past in Flames is fine off of 1 Red land + artifacts, but this is a spell that needs to be cast off lands, and we really need at least 2 green sources in the 75 if this is going to be a 3-4x in the SB). Also, I don't think we board this in against Maverick, at least not 4x. It doesn't do enough against them, and we don't really want to have green sources + karakas against them, as their end-game is always just KoTR + Wastelanding us it seems.

Dark Ritual

09-06-2012, 07:29 PM

Hmmmm....in any storm deck running black and green this is an automatic 4 of in the sideboard. Also don't see how it will lead to any bannings, I can't see abrupt decay getting the axe in legacy just the notion makes me laugh. As for them banning LED because of this card, I don't see that either. I can't think of any card that will get banned as a result of this being printed. It improves storm to be sure, but it doesn't improve it so much that it will require a banning later on.

I'm seriously debating whether or not I should splash green in Emidln's ANT list solely for this card. Doing so would destablize the mana a little bit or take up a sideboard slot. I won't cut volcanic island though, as using artifact mana to utilize PiF is a little bit backwards/awkward as you need cabal/dark rit for PiF to work and not LED.

For a manabase with 9 fetches and a green splash out of the sideboard I would use the following:

4 Polluted Delta
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 U. Sea
1 Swamp
2 Island
1 Volcanic island

Testing would tell whether you should run a 1/1 split of mire/catacombs, 2 mire, or 2 catacombs. I just went with a 1/1 split as it seems safest.

As for the xantid swarm idea, it's an interesting one to be sure. Personally I would probably just one a one of EE in that slot, especially now that we can set it up to 4 without petals. Xantid would be my go to card if merfolk rises in popularity though or decks that are soft to xantid.

Okay so I just noticed that you put a bayou and a trop in your sideboard. So no need to completely redo the manabase as the current manabase can support both rather easily in that any fetch can get you green. Guess I'm just used to only tropical island being sideboarded in and not bayou.

Mindlash

09-06-2012, 07:58 PM

@Mindlash
Thank.you for the help. I plan on playing this deck at a local tourney this weekend and need help side boarding. I like the wipeaways against miracles.

I have not played that much against Miracle. Played some Games with my common sense boarding....some with Timos boarding plans. The matchup is balanced I would say...there are times, where they have CB/Top and there are other times where you just win.

There is just no pressure....in my opinion . You can even trick them into putting Top on top of their deck. Most of the time I won...somtimes its a draw....but most of the times you do not loose to this deck...there are even Goblin Decks complaining about it...or Dredge Deck...dafug -.- I cannot understand it...do not overextend...hit the right cards...Miracle lives from people who do not know what to do :-/ Overextending and such...

I do not like the idea of crippling my manabase against the upcoming tribels. Before I would go 4 color for some new spell I would go TES and trust me...I never would. I like ANT much more for its stable manabase. And stable Mana is a strong thing with Goblins, Merfolk, Canadian, Maverick and this kind of Decks lurking...

I would also never dismiss "red" in my manabase. Maybe its some kind of personal style...but I like "red" alot because it gives you a good game 1 against Maverick. It gives you easy access to our best Stormengine. It gives access to an easy extra Tutor.

Even after such a short time of playing this deck...there are so much plays I do not ever want to give up. Grim Tutor is just Baws G1. What does UBg do against Mav G1?

Its defnitly a Spell I would take up in a playset....but I do not think it is the time to use it....now...it will be here...I will use it....but not now...really....as long as I only see counterbalance for it as a target....

aaronm678

09-06-2012, 08:31 PM

.Miracle lives from people who do not know what to do :-/ Overextending and such...

I do not like the idea of crippling my manabase against the upcoming tribels. Before I would go 4 color for some new spell I would go TES and trust me...I never would. I like ANT much more for its stable manabase. And stable Mana is a strong thing with Goblins, Merfolk, Canadian, Maverick and this kind of Decks lurking...

So let me get this straight...you just picked up the deck and you're confident enough to a) determine that our worst matchup is only "that bad" because we aren't good players, and b) determine that that matchup doesn't warrant splashing another card?

Play the deck a little more, then play against a competent miracles player before you rush to judgement. Also, worth mentioning, the green splash comes entirely out of the sideboard, it's not hurting our mana at all, except against decks that run 1-2 Wasteland at most -- the only problem is you can't support the green SB and leave BW in your deck, which means you need to find 1-3x business spells that aren't red to fill those slots (Snapcaster or Grim Tutor are common, some people have also run an additional Ad Naus in the past in that slot).

Usually UBG loses G1 to maverick, or goes off before they land a hate bear -- it's not like Burning Wish opens up that many lines against them anyway, as it's not that often that BW into Hate into kill is a reasonable line anyway once Thalia is out.

EDIT:

It's clear English is not your first language, so I apologize if I misunderstood something you're saying.

Mindlash

09-06-2012, 09:58 PM

So let me get this straight...you just picked up the deck and you're confident enough to a) determine that our worst matchup is only "that bad" because we aren't good players, and b) determine that that matchup doesn't warrant splashing another card?

Play the deck a little more, then play against a competent miracles player before you rush to judgement. Also, worth mentioning, the green splash comes entirely out of the sideboard, it's not hurting our mana at all, except against decks that run 1-2 Wasteland at most -- the only problem is you can't support the green SB and leave BW in your deck, which means you need to find 1-3x business spells that aren't red to fill those slots (Snapcaster or Grim Tutor are common, some people have also run an additional Ad Naus in the past in that slot).

Usually UBG loses G1 to maverick, or goes off before they land a hate bear -- it's not like Burning Wish opens up that many lines against them anyway, as it's not that often that BW into Hate into kill is a reasonable line anyway once Thalia is out.

EDIT:

It's clear English is not your first language, so I apologize if I misunderstood something you're saying.

Wow...Miracle as worst matchup...I would like to play your Meta :-) I feel RUG and Reanimator are alot harder...but you are right...I am just a newb...perhaps I am wrong... At a sidenote: You do not need to offense my language! It is not my fault that you are loosing to Miracle...I am not even playing it :-/ We are on the same side here...

Rampart

09-06-2012, 10:19 PM

I've completely smashed CB players with storm before, and then lose in the matchup to Dave Gearhart because he has enough experience to know how hard it is to beat a top in play floating Force of will.

Pretty much sum's up the CB matchup. Playing through the softlock against an experianced CB players is extremely challenging. You need a really good sideboard plan to beat a good CB player, and even then your going to be 50/50, best case.

lambert101

09-06-2012, 10:29 PM

Mindlash,

I thank you for your help.

Kanti

09-06-2012, 11:01 PM

Decay does seem like a nice catch-all, but it still doesn't get around MoR. Still a nice card to have which can shave down some sb space. I'm not sure it's better than Wipe Away or E.E though. I guess if you are playing 4 Dread of Nights Decay gains a lot of power against Maverick decks though.

Dia_Bot

09-07-2012, 02:45 AM

Rekk

09-07-2012, 10:01 AM

CB has been archenemy nr. 1 for a long long time. Now I'm still unsure if its actually played enough to give a fuck and waste 3-4 sideboard slots on it . My policy for a very long time has been to just ignore it but I guess if its really popular in you area you should make some room for it.
I really can't wait till decay is legal especially since I already splash green for Xantid swarm anyway.:smile:

with decay you no longer have to dedicate spots or just ignore it. you get something you can bring in against basically all creature decks. this kills every hate bear and those random pillars the red deck will play.
bring this in and they don't have a hatebear draw, kill a knight. yes this doesn't beat a mom and hatebear but its not like you cut the virtue's ruins or e.es
the fact of the matter is this new spell is just better then wipeaway and fills the same role as a cb killer. you bring this in most all the time. the only concern i have is how the mana will be considering we are in 4 colors.
maybe we (and this might be crazy) cut pif go for iggy and just crush things. hopefully cb dies out and i don't have to wonder what i wanna play anymore

Dia_Bot

09-07-2012, 11:24 AM

with decay you no longer have to dedicate spots or just ignore it. you get something you can bring in against basically all creature decks. this kills every hate bear and those random pillars the red deck will play.
bring this in and they don't have a hatebear draw, kill a knight. yes this doesn't beat a mom and hatebear but its not like you cut the virtue's ruins or e.es
the fact of the matter is this new spell is just better then wipeaway and fills the same role as a cb killer. you bring this in most all the time. the only concern i have is how the mana will be considering we are in 4 colors.
maybe we (and this might be crazy) cut pif go for iggy and just crush things. hopefully cb dies out and i don't have to wonder what i wanna play anymore

Yeah I know, the first part of my post was directed at the situation right now. Sorry if it caused confusion.

SaberTooth

09-07-2012, 11:42 AM

no bounce? i mean, leyline of sanctity is a card too (maybe a really random one), i know that we have etw, but that's the plan?

Rekk

09-07-2012, 01:29 PM

no bounce? i mean, leyline of sanctity is a card too (maybe a really random one), i know that we have etw, but that's the plan?

I'll accept trying to go for goblins. theirs very very few decks that have to run leyline of sanctity for their storm hate. It's not diverse enough of an option for me to think it will actually be run.

Dark Ritual

09-08-2012, 01:03 AM

I have faced leyline of sanctity one time in the past year or something and that was because the guy running it was disillusioned about how good it is in a sideboard in legacy right now (hint: the card isn't good in legacy right now, and I doubt it will be good any time soon.)

I'm very fine ignoring leyline. People running leyline will be in the losers bracket and if you're not in the winners bracket sorry.

With CB the solution is now quite simple. You can literally bring in just 4 decay, bayou, and trop and the matchup becomes ridiculously easy as their problem cards are all answered by decay from SDT to CB. The line against a player with CBTop assembled will be EoT destroy both with a pair of abrupt decay and they can flip their top. You untap and duress the crap out of them or therapy them a bunch and proceed to win.

I haven't looked at IGG hardly at all. There are a few situations where the card is good, but when you're facing blue the card becomes infinitely worse. Also don't want to cut a sideboard slot for it against fair decks, as against those decks you generally answer their hate then PiF for the win. Or turn 1 AdN or what have you.

Deviruchi

09-08-2012, 01:55 AM

I'm very fine ignoring leyline. People running leyline will be in the losers bracket and if you're not in the winners bracket sorry.

Leyline of Sanctity is very common in S&T decks and they are quite often in winners bracket.

aaronm678

09-08-2012, 10:29 AM

When you guys run green lands in the sb, do you bring in either against RUG? I used to really like bringing in my trop against them (I've never run a bayou before, it doesn't seem great, though)

Dark Ritual

09-08-2012, 12:50 PM

Leyline of Sanctity is very common in S&T decks and they are quite often in winners bracket.

People running omni tell don't run leyline's in their SB due to the wishboard. Sneak and show lists have been cutting that card because it isn't good and they'd rather player other cards in their sideboard rather than crappy leyline's that require you to mulligan into them as the card isn't castable short of double petal and at that point they're 2 for 0'ing themselves with petal and should be casting a card called sneak attack or show and tell. Sure people ran it in the past, but currently people aren't running the card and the ones that are are likely in the losers bracket due to playing a suboptimal sideboard. If you're that worried about leyline, I suggest a one of CoV or something as you need literally one bounce spell to deal with their leyline when you go off. Or bring in a one of EtW to simply get 20+ tokens and untap into the win. The fact is I'm not going to bother worrying about leyline of sanctity when no winning decklists are running the card. Especially with omni tell becoming more popular than sneak and show and they can't run that card when they have a wishboard without seriously fucking up their entire sideboard to include the card as a 4 of.

Just bringing in extra lands against RUG is iffy. I know I haven't done it but it could be right. We have basics though to fight against RUG.

emidln

09-08-2012, 02:57 PM

I'd consider siding up to 16 or 17 lands vs RUG. You lose way more games to not having lands due to stifle/waste and not getting a 2nd (or 3rd) than you do to anything else.

guillemnicolau

09-08-2012, 04:38 PM

So.. canadian players prefer to use their stifles for your fetches than for your finishers? I'm not sure about that...

emidln

09-08-2012, 04:58 PM

The ones you might actually lose to stifle fetches. The others think we're always so lucky to have that duress off pif or adn.

Sloshthedark

09-08-2012, 05:06 PM

depends which configuration are you playing, I don't think it necessary in general (playing 1+1, 2+1+1, +9) but I probably would SB in 1 playing 14, I'm missing more lands in UW(b) variants matches in general, better with emidln style sb plan & Karakas // I prefer Bayou over Trop while playing Xantid swarm

+ 2nd PiF main all the way, just waiting till you realize :cool:
+ imho SDT is our Enemy no. 1 in UW-CB match-up, not counterbalance

aaronm678

09-08-2012, 06:36 PM

So.. canadian players prefer to use their stifles for your fetches than for your finishers? I'm not sure about that...

If they want to hold stifle while I flash back 4 duresses, good for them.

Our finishers are PiF and Ad Nauseam, not Tendrils and EtW.

ThomasDowd

09-08-2012, 08:45 PM

Abrupt decay is so good.

Probably moving away from BW soon, and maybe back to grims. probe/therapy is very good, helps achieve threshold a lot faster due to the "free"ness of probe.

Who cares about mom when you are wrathing them anyway?

if they are holding their stifles for the storm trigger they will lose, they should be attacking your mana, and presenting a 5-6 turn clock if they are playing correctly.

Dark Ritual

09-09-2012, 12:13 AM

Stifling our storm trigger will happen once in a blue moon i.e. one time in every 100 matches or so when everything lines up perfectly and you have no choice but to run tendrils right into that stifle. But that is quite rare, I think I've had one storm trigger stifled over the past year. Smart players will stifle fetchlands, as winning without lands is difficult to do short of sacking hard in terms of what you draw.

I've tried Emidln's list with snapcaster's and it is quite good. I absolutely adore snapcaster in here, flashbacking IT with snapcaster is ridiculous. Also love the value with therapy so much. Just a really solid card and it works wonders in terms of baiting countermagic as people think they have to counter the card when they don't actually have to. I at least like Tiago more than the alternative (wish) because wish is actually pretty terrible. Also hate wishboards with a passion because having a weird SB because of wish can be a losing proposition. Also never got turn 1 EtW via wish in this deck, as it is actually a 4 card combo (LED, petal, dark rit, wish, land.) I only used EtW once in KC, and that was against a bad RUG player who kept a land heavy hand so he could do nothing in regards to wish into EtW on turn 2.

Rekk

09-09-2012, 07:13 PM

Got third in the Philadelphia Legacy Series with the following:
4 lion's eye diamond
4 lotus petal
4 dark ritual
4 cabal ritual
4 duress
2 thoughtseize
2 preordain
4 ponder
4 brainstorm
4 infernal tutor
3 burning wish
3 gitaxian probe
1 Ad naus
1 pif
1 tendrils
4 polluted delta
2 island
1 swamp
3 scalding tarn
1 bloodstained mire
1 badlands
1 volc
2 u-sea

sideboard

2 virtue's ruin,
1 infest,
1 ToA,
2 extirpate
2 wipe away,
1 chain of vapor
1 empty,
1 PiF
2 EE
1 Karakas
1 therapy

(thank you Matt for the sideboard)

I lost in the top 4 against landstill.

if anyone is interested i can write a report.
My only loss in the swiss was to a stoneblade player, where i lost game 3 because i forgot to board out the pif i had wished for game 2. It could have gone either way because I called the judge when i brainstormed into Pif pif.

I also drew to the landstill player in the swiss to get in.

aaronm678

09-09-2012, 07:29 PM

Congrats on the finish! I think you forgot some lands - something tells me you wouldn't do that well on 57 cards and 12 land.

Tammit67

09-09-2012, 08:39 PM

(thank you Matt for the sideboard)

I lost in the top 4 against landstill.

if anyone is interested i can write a report.
My only loss in the swiss was to a stoneblade player, where i lost game 3 because i forgot to board out the pif i had wished for game 2. It could have gone either way because I called the judge when i brainstormed into Pif pif.

I also drew to the landstill player in the swiss to get in.
Congrats! The landstill player, Josh, traditionally brings in cannonist/rule of law plus Meddling mage. Is this what gave you trouble?

Report would be awesome :)

Rekk

09-09-2012, 09:17 PM

Sorry if I get some details wrong, I lost most my notes.
Tournament was at AU Blue Bell,
It had a great showing 6 round event

Round one:
Mono black: 2-1

I believe I win the die roll and lead with duress and see grave titan bsz nighthawk, swamp, swamp, something some thing. I killed him with past in flames.

Game 2: get eaten by phyrexian arena plus double hymn, double obliterator. Forced to try to ad at 3 life.

Game 3: he didn’t have enough hate to beat an early ad naus.

Round two:
Stoneblade (I believe this was round 2): 2-1
I win game one on the back of forcing through his countermagic.
Lose game 2 in a drawn out game where I burning wish for pif.
Game 3 I play land go with a hand of dark rit ad nause cabal ritual, ect ect. He goes inquisition, I brainstorm and draw pif pif… call judge say I have a 14 card sideboard anddd game loss.

Round 3
Stoneblade (2-1? Or 2-0)

I fight through the counter magic game one and killed via pif.
Then I remember winning the match because my opponent thoughtseizes taking a duress, I draw a duress hit ts (seeing flusterstorm), and win when he goes snapcaster thoughtseize because now he couldn’t cast flusterstorm

Round 4
Affinity ( I saw him playing next to me, he said yup I just lose to you)

Annnnnddd repairing

Round 4
Affinity (the only other one in the room)
I win game one doing stormy things.

He brings in duress and inq, he duresses away my turn one adnuas. I draw led play it
Draw infernal tutor kill him with past in flames.

Round 5
Rug: 2-0 (I’m not one hundred percent sure)

He doesn’t have enough countermagic to stop me.
Game 2 he doesn’t have enough countermagic.
Round 6
Josh (landstill)
I-D

Top 8
(Rug)
2-1
My opponent gets a deck reg error he is on the play in game 2.

Game 2: he destroys me with a sylvan and force pierce pierce.

Game 3: I beat him when he has an ancient grudge in hand and I’m at 3.

Top 4
My opponent is Josh who I drew in with in round 6, he had just beaten a stoneblade player which upset me, I like the stoneblade matchup.

Landstill (1-2)

He lost game one where I probe him seeing humility, brainstorm, counterspell, factory, plowshares, ?, ?, take a brainstorm and kill him through him have 3 counterspells. Duress taking counter spell, infernal getting forced, pif getting forced recasting pif that turn and winning.

Game 2:
I probe seeing force, jace, surgical, swords, standstill, lands,
Get destroyed by card advantage and factory.

Game 3:
He surgicals a lot and brings in rebs.
I try to ad naus since I saw snare snare earlier, annnnd it gets forced.

If you have any questions on my boarding feel free to ask.

Over all I think I wanna cut the two preordains for probe and therapy, cutting the thoughtseize. I kinda wanted another discard and realized I’m gonna pay a lot of life.

I didn’t really end up using any cards in my board, I brought in e.e’s a lot incase of cage from rug. Never ended up casting it. But it cost 0 which was nice for storm count if you use ad nause.

I didn’t play mav so I didn’t get to see how the board plan would work out. Overall it seems sweeeeet,
Bring in Karakas
E,e’s
Ruins.
Wish for infest
I figure since we are a slower deck we might as well not try to use discard to solve g/ws threats. Just use board control elements, dread of night does the same thing, but I don’t like it when g/w is adding teeg to beat u/w.

JJ-JKidd

09-12-2012, 01:03 AM

Zieby

09-12-2012, 07:05 AM

Epic Experiment

Sorcery

Exile the top X cards of your library. For each instant or sorcery with converted mana cost X or less among them, you may cast that card without paying its mana cost. Then put all cards exiled this way that weren't cast into your graveyard.
I do not think this card will be that good in Legacy storm in the Current builds of TES and ANT. The mana requirements are to high and you have AN and PIF already, both of them are better in the current shels, however, I do believe a Storm variant can be created with this card, one that also includes FOW and one without LED.

just my thoughts for now, testing will tell what the thruth will be.

Rekk

09-12-2012, 09:50 AM

I do not think this card will be that good in Legacy storm in the Current builds of TES and ANT. The mana requirements are to high and you have AN and PIF already, both of them are better in the current shels, however, I do believe a Storm variant can be created with this card, one that also includes FOW and one without LED.

just my thoughts for now, testing will tell what the thruth will be.

why wouldn't you want led in a verison that plays an x spell??
but this just feels like mind's desires dumbed down cousin. this spell can't chain with itself so when you cast this you need to hit a tendrils ooor ramp and dig. it seems like alot of work for a card worse then ad naus

emidln

09-12-2012, 11:04 AM

I was looking into applications of this card to Doomsday, but at 4-5 mana, it's just a lot worse, even as a pass the turn pile, than any other options. Somewhere it might find success would be Spiral Tide though. ANT simply isn't looking to pay 5 to draw 3 and save 2.5 mana on (maybe) casting those 3.

Tammit67

09-12-2012, 11:48 AM

Rekk

09-12-2012, 05:05 PM

Spiral tide, now thats an idea

could this make past in flames hightide teir one? i hope

TakeYourTime

09-12-2012, 08:11 PM

Got third in the Philadelphia Legacy Series

Grats! I wish I brought any deck besides dreadstill to the AU tournament (I'm addicted to playing stupid decks).

I highly recommend dread of night in the sideboard. I placed second at the Stomping Grounds tournament with ANT. I beat 2 Maverick and DnT once, but lost to DnT in the final.

My sideboard:
3 Pyroblast
4 Dread of Night
1 Duress
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Wipe Away
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Virtue's Ruin
1 Tendrils of Agony

With 4 dread of night and virtue's ruin in the wish board, teeg/canonist are no issue whatsoever. Every game I found 2 dread of night very easily. The deck is so explosive that most of the time your only concern is killing the turn 2 thalia.

What got me in the finals was phyrexian revoker naming LED, revoker naming lotus petal, stony silence, and mangara.

UW miracles can also be an easy matchup. Postboard there's 4 cabal, 3 duress, 3 IoK, and 3 pyroblast to completely ruin UW. Pyroblast can also be used to increase your storm count.

However, I need to re-evaluate the bounce spells.

Rekk

09-12-2012, 10:26 PM

Grats! I wish I brought any deck besides dreadstill to the AU tournament (I'm addicted to playing stupid decks).

I highly recommend dread of night in the sideboard. I placed second at the Stomping Grounds tournament with ANT. I beat 2 Maverick and DnT once, but lost to DnT in the final.

My sideboard:
3 Pyroblast
4 Dread of Night
1 Duress
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Wipe Away
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Virtue's Ruin
1 Tendrils of Agony

With 4 dread of night and virtue's ruin in the wish board, teeg/canonist are no issue whatsoever. Every game I found 2 dread of night very easily. The deck is so explosive that most of the time your only concern is killing the turn 2 thalia.

What got me in the finals was phyrexian revoker naming LED, revoker naming lotus petal, stony silence, and mangara.

UW miracles can also be an easy matchup. Postboard there's 4 cabal, 3 duress, 3 IoK, and 3 pyroblast to completely ruin UW. Pyroblast can also be used to increase your storm count.

However, I need to re-evaluate the bounce spells.

I was your round one mav player :p. And you know I might just have to try dread the only thing that worries me is pridemage teeg and cannonist. But honestly with thalia dead if they go gsz mage blow it. Well I should have had infi time to kill them. So ill try them. As for rebs and inq. Where are you getting all the room / arnt rebs kinda weak against all none cb red decks. You can't led infernal with one. Unless your a stonecold master or passing priority and mind games. Also usually you just play deed still I'm gonna confiscate your standstills for a bit.

mike1987

09-12-2012, 11:04 PM

Grats! I wish I brought any deck besides dreadstill to the AU tournament (I'm addicted to playing stupid decks).

I highly recommend dread of night in the sideboard. I placed second at the Stomping Grounds tournament with ANT. I beat 2 Maverick and DnT once, but lost to DnT in the final.

My sideboard:
3 Pyroblast
4 Dread of Night
1 Duress
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Wipe Away
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Virtue's Ruin
1 Tendrils of Agony

With 4 dread of night and virtue's ruin in the wish board, teeg/canonist are no issue whatsoever. Every game I found 2 dread of night very easily. The deck is so explosive that most of the time your only concern is killing the turn 2 thalia.

What got me in the finals was phyrexian revoker naming LED, revoker naming lotus petal, stony silence, and mangara.

UW miracles can also be an easy matchup. Postboard there's 4 cabal, 3 duress, 3 IoK, and 3 pyroblast to completely ruin UW. Pyroblast can also be used to increase your storm count.

However, I need to re-evaluate the bounce spells.

What would you side out for the dread of night and the bounce spells when facing against maverick?

Rekk

09-12-2012, 11:25 PM

What would you side out for the dread of night and the bounce spells when facing against maverick?

most likely discard and probes

TakeYourTime

09-12-2012, 11:53 PM

most likely discard and probes

yep...

Out: duress, probes
In: IoK, dread of night

Sloshthedark

09-14-2012, 05:53 AM

offtopic - has the GP winner written any report yet? german/english doesn't matter, I think it was highly anticipated... just question for those who know him/read german forums

Maxe

09-14-2012, 08:20 AM

offtopic - has the GP winner written any report yet? german/english doesn't matter, I think it was highly anticipated... just question for those who know him/read german forums

He wrote some gerneral stuff about his gp back in Juli, but nothing like a Storm report. :(
Not, hopefully someday he is.

mike1987

09-18-2012, 11:06 PM

This. Listen to this man

Why not just play wipe away instead of splashing green to play decay? Sure it costs more but playing wipe away saves you a few sideboard slots for bayou and tropical island. Lastly it's cheaper :smile:

aaronm678

09-18-2012, 11:58 PM

Why not just play wipe away instead of splashing green to play decay? Sure it costs more but playing wipe away saves you a few sideboard slots for bayou and tropical island. Lastly it's cheaper :smile:

Abrupt decay is a general enough answer we can run 3-4 of them, so we have more sideboard space to give up. Also, sometimes it's tough to go off in one turn against Miracles, so having a permanent answer is sweet.

Sloshthedark

09-19-2012, 10:52 AM

I think Guttersnipe+Dark Confidant will be great tech for first few tournaments (until people learn to leave swords in) or as a alter plan to 4C, it dodges CB and SP well and you just kill them through it

4C manabase will be tough but can't wait to drop BW, that card irritates me most time, played UBr SnapAnt this week (Confidant+Swarm side), it felt slower but awesome in longer games; lost to Merfolk in last round (didn't see swarms, not sure if I want Dark Confidant in G2,3 =/)

heathen

09-20-2012, 12:22 PM

aaronm678

09-20-2012, 03:01 PM

I'm running the Ghent-winning list, with the notable exception of Grim Tutor. I've read through this whole thread, and it seems like I'm not the only one questioning Burning Wish. While I like having the ability to Wish for cards like Empty the Warrens, various removal, and IGG, I often find myself with a Wish and not enough mana to do something that will end the game on the spot. Wish just feels like a dead card much of the time.

I guess what I'm wondering is if the lack of Grim Tutor is what makes my Burning Wishes awkward, or if Burning Wish itself is awkward regardless of sideboard targets.

What are the pros and cons of keeping Wish? Do the cons outweigh the pros without Grim Tutor in the board? Would having Grim Tutor justify running Wish?

BW Pros:
- You get maindeck outs to hatebears
- You get far more Turn 1-2 12 Goblin wins

BW Cons:
- You don't get a real SB
- You can't easily convert excess mana into storm
- PiF and IGG are dead unless you also have a tutor

Grim Tutor in the SB helps solve the last two (if you have extremely excessive mana, you can generate more storm, or you can get PiF/IGG with Grim Tutor if you have like 8-10 floating). BW -> Grim Tutor is also a pretty decent line if you find yourself without anything else to do on turn 2-3 to setup the kill for the next turn.

I'd definitely recommend running one in the SB, as it's probably one of the more common BW targets. If you can't get one, than it probably isn't worth running Wishes, IMO.

Rampart

09-20-2012, 03:11 PM

BW Pros:
- You get maindeck outs to hatebears
- You get far more Turn 1-2 12 Goblin wins

BW Cons:
- You don't get a real SB
- You can't easily convert excess mana into storm
- PiF and IGG are dead unless you also have a tutor

Grim Tutor in the SB helps solve the last two (if you have extremely excessive mana, you can generate more storm, or you can get PiF/IGG with Grim Tutor if you have like 8-10 floating). BW -> Grim Tutor is also a pretty decent line if you find yourself without anything else to do on turn 2-3 to setup the kill for the next turn.

I'd definitely recommend running one in the SB, as it's probably one of the more common BW targets. If you can't get one, than it probably isn't worth running Wishes, IMO.

I found the grim tutor less then stellar in the board, and ended up cutting it after a couple of weeks of never using it. Haven't missed it.

I think the problem with the burning wish ANT builds is that mulliganing choices are harder do to the less stable manabase. Also the lines of play with BW can get screwy with a poor Ad Nauseam which turns people off.

heathen

09-20-2012, 03:52 PM

I think the problem with the burning wish ANT builds is that mulliganing choices are harder do to the less stable manabase. Also the lines of play with BW can get screwy with a poor Ad Nauseam which turns people off.

Do you run Empty the Warrens maindeck? I like having access to it just in case, but with Empty, Past in Flames, Tendrils, and IGG in the main that could add up to some brutal Ad Nauseam flips. I could see leaving out IGG because I rarely use it, but I definitely like Past in Flames and would be loathe to cut it from the main.

Rampart

09-20-2012, 10:24 PM

I prefer to just win with tendrils then pass the turn and get blown out. I keep etw in the sideboard.

Just ToA and PIF in my main deck. If you are running all four of those cards in your main deck you would need to cut the ad neasuem. IGG has been completely out classed by PIF unless your running the white splash in which case it is actually pretty good

heathen

09-21-2012, 12:34 PM

I think for now I will cut one Burning Wish (going down to two) and replace it with a Snapcaster and see how that goes. I will keep EtW and IGG in the side, along with some other Wish targets like Infest, another ToA, and maybe a Deathmark.

rajang1991

09-21-2012, 01:48 PM

hi,i am an italian ant player and now i'm running a list with wish...in test it's great but against uw miracle it's very difficult to win...the list is this:
4 brainstorm
4 ponder
3 preordain
4 dark ritual
4 cabal ritual
4 led
4 lotus petal
1 sensei
3 gitaxian probe
3 cabal therapy
4 duress
2 burning wish
3 infernal tutor
1 past in flames
1 ad nauseam
1 tendrils
4 polluted delta
4 flooded strand
2 underground sea
2 volcanic island
1 island
1 swamp

sideboard:
1 past in flames
1 empty the warrens
1 diminishing returns
1 tendrils of agony
1 infest
1 infernal tutor
3 dark confidant
1 thoughseize
2 surgical extraction
3 chain of vapor
try this list in the italian metagame it's good ;)

Mindlash

09-21-2012, 09:49 PM

hi,i am an italian ant player and now i'm running a list with wish...in test it's great but against uw miracle it's very difficult to win...

Hey :-)

Why is it more difficult for you to win against Miracles with wishes than without?
Which list did you play with less problems against Miracle?
What is your most problematic card in this Matchup?

Greetings Mindlash

rajang1991

09-22-2012, 01:15 AM

Mindlash

09-24-2012, 12:11 PM

that deck don't play only counterbalance, he play spell pierce spell snare fow...and with sensei on the board it's impossible win why he can switch with the counter on the top of the library...if you play against a good opponent if he don't draw only land, it's hard to win for storm combo

Perhaps I misread the post I was initially referring to. You said you now run a wishlist which performs good, but has problems with UW Miracle, which implied to me it was easier for you to play against UW Miracle without wishes. So I was wondering why it's easier without wishes. Ignore my post, if I misinterpret you :-)

Top + Hardcounter on top of the Library can give you more headaches than Counterbalance. It's pretty annoying to play against.

Megadeus

09-24-2012, 10:04 PM

I have been testing this deck on cockatrice... Man its so fun... What is like an optimal build? Or just a standard build?

MTG Junkie

09-24-2012, 10:16 PM

I feel like Thought Scour could ad some value to the deck. Anybody ever tryed it out?

heathen

09-24-2012, 10:48 PM

I feel like Thought Scour could ad some value to the deck. Anybody ever tryed it out?

I haven't tried it, but it seems like it wouldn't do enough. While it is an instant-speed cantrip and could provide some synergy with IGG, Cabal Ritual, and PiF, ultimately it probably isn't strong enough to warrant a place in this deck. What would you cut for it?

MTG Junkie

09-24-2012, 11:34 PM

Mindlash

09-25-2012, 04:35 AM

If someone is interested:

Ovino7 - Vintage, Legacy & Modern

Saturday Legacy: ~450 players: finalist were Del Valle (from Spain with reanimator) and Schunemann (from Germany - the winner of GP Ghent - with ANT), wins Schunemann

Taken from: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=44498.0

He played the same list from Gent and went 7-1-1
Top 16 Elimination Rounds.

Greetings Mindlash

heathen

09-25-2012, 11:36 AM

Those synergies sound good to. But I was thinking more like you Duress them they Brainstorm then you Thought Scour. I just hate when the discard plan isn't as good when they have Brainstorm,especiallyif you Therapy them. Could even be good against Counterballence and or Top.

Iv been running
2 Thoughtseize
3 Duress
3 Therapy
3 G Probe

I think I would only play 1 or 2 if any. I'd probably cut a Duress and Probe maybe.
Idk,in my experiences against Brainstorm especially on the draw it turns the discard plan to not so good.

You make good points. The problem with using it against CounterTop is they are already going to float a one-drop to stop all your Dark Rituals, Ponders, Brainstorms, Duresses, etc. so they may often be able to counter the Thought Scour too. If you test it out I'd like to hear how it goes for you.

xfxf

09-25-2012, 03:00 PM

Does he have a report in English for either tournament?

Mindlash

09-25-2012, 03:48 PM

Nope there is no english report. Only a german blogentry about the trip and the tournament. But it is not very detailed on how the matches played out.

I can write you down the decks he encountered if there is some interest:

Swiss:

Round 1: black/white massive discard deck (perhaps death&taxes): 2:0
Round 2: Rug Delver: 2:1
Round 3: UW Miracle: 1:2
Round 4: UW Mircale: 2:0
Round 5: Goblins: 2:0
Round 6: Mono W: 2:0
Round 7: Rock: 2:x (not able to see the exact result out of the text)
Round 8: Dredge: 2:0
Round 9: ID into Top16

Top 16:

Round 10: Reanimator: 2:0
Round 11: UW Miracle: 2:0
Round 12: BantBlade: 2:0
Finals: Reanimator: Price Split

Best Regards
Mindlash

xfxf

09-25-2012, 05:07 PM

I wonder how he beat two Miracles decks 2-0

mort-

09-25-2012, 05:25 PM

I wonder how he beat two Miracles decks 2-0

As I saw him revealing to some Ad Nauseams, with a good chunk of luck I assume ;)

MTG Junkie

09-28-2012, 03:04 PM

Really odd night last night lol. I lost 0/2 to Goblins and won 2/0 against Reanimater.

I had plenty of mana G1 but after 3 cantrips I just couldn't get a business spell.
G2 I try a different board approach,3 Ratchet Bomb. I wanted them to be Engineered Explosives but know one them to let me use. So I mull to a decent 5. I end up going off with Ad Nauseam and loose
to it :(

Reanimater G1 Im on the play. I Duress and take his Brainstorm,then Thoughtseize his Careful Study via Lotus Petal. I recover faster and kill him :)
G2 He is able to Reanimate a Sphinx of the Steelwind,lucky for me haha. I go off the next turn after theraping his double Force of Wills.

Pride was a little hurt after loosing to Goblins but o well it happens. 2/0 ing Reanimater cheered me up :)

MTG Junkie

10-01-2012, 09:42 PM

Any Jupiter games goers on here? I'm thinking about going this month. Iv seen the top 8 list from past months,ANT looks like it could do well. I don't really know though,I haven't been there in along time.
Any info on Jupiter's meta helps. Thanks in Advanced.

heathen

10-03-2012, 01:22 AM

LSV playing almost the same list as Timo's that won GP Ghent: http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/channel-lsv-storm-legacy-event/

Sloshthedark

10-03-2012, 04:50 AM

he is inexperienced with the deck and makes some poor choices both play and SB, in fact it's worth watching just out of curiosity

xfxf

10-03-2012, 08:17 AM

Inexperienced? The guy won the GP and played finals in a major European tournament.

HokusSchmokus

10-03-2012, 08:35 AM

He is inexperienced with the deck. He picked up the deck about 2 months before the GP. Was playing Dredge before. He is just good, that's the thing.

Also, I think Slosh meant LSV, and I agree that he made mistakes.

heathen

10-03-2012, 08:45 AM

Also, I think Slosh meant LSV, and I agree that he made mistakes.

If you guys could point out particular instances you notice that would be very helpful for those of us who are less experienced. I know I'd appreciate it.

Dia_Bot

10-03-2012, 11:20 AM

experienced? The guy won the GP and played finals in a major European tournament.

Timo was in fact quite inexpierenced with the deck when he won the GP (still he was the guy their playgroup tested against when playing against storm so that counts for something).
But like HokusSchmokus said he is a very good player which is more important then being experienced, I've seen that one time and again when pro's decided to pick up a deck and owned regular legacy players just on account of play skill.
That being said I wouldn't assume his list is "perfect" (I see so many people copying his list and taking it to tournaments but take into account that while the list is solid it is by no means a list forged throught months of testing.

HokusSchmokus

10-03-2012, 02:49 PM

That being said I wouldn't assume his list is "perfect" (I see so many people copying his list and taking it to tournaments but take into account that while the list is solid it is by no means a list forged throught months of testing.

Rumor has it that the list was developed in ca. 30 min.Never changed it afterwards afaik.

Anselm

10-05-2012, 06:57 AM

Has anyone tested the Abrupt Decay plan devised by emidln a few pages back to beat UW Miracles? Interested in knowing how good it actually is. Seems sweet, but you never know.

egosum

10-05-2012, 04:13 PM

I' m testing it. But adding green to the mixture even if it only is for decay cripples the mana base of current TNT builds (for those who are not used to this term still is ANT + burning wish, basically). for this matter I've felt that an internal restructure ahould be done. so, i've cut the BW and went bacl to good old Grim Tutor (still play a mini red splash for past in flames).

This is the list I' m pñaying:

MAIN DECK 60

lands 15

1x Island
1x Swamp
1x Tropical Island
1x Bayou
1x Volcanic Island
2x Underground Sea
4x Polluted Delta
3x Misty Rainforest
1x Verdant Catacombs

fast mana 16

4x Lotus Petal
4x Lion's Eye Diamond

4x Dark ritual
4x Cabal Ritual

cantrips 12

4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Gitaxian Probe

protection 8

4x Duress
4x Cabal Therapy

bussiness 9

4x Infernal Tutor
2x Grim Tutor
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Past in Flames
1x Tendrils of agony

SIDEBOARD 15

2x Tormod's Crypt
2x Grafdigger's Cage
3x Xantid Swarm
3x Abrupt Decay
2x Chain of Vapor
2x Engineered Exlosives
1x Ill-Gotten Gains

On abrut decay Abrupt Decay. It is more than a decent card for the CB match up but is worse than blue bouncers against plain aggro (or non blue) decks just because of its casting cost.

Nevertheless I like the list because splashing green (as main splash color) opens the possibility of including Xantid Swarm which helps a lot in some difficult (and even= match ups such as reanimator or Show and tell incarnations. In addition this little bug is very nice with cabal therapy (not because you may need the extra disruption once it is resolved, though sometimes it may be useful, but because the extra storm it can provide may be helpful in close matches).

I'm not still completely sold on the list I posted because I think that the meta will shift after RtR. We will see less Miracle decks and more BUG incarnations (which are also natural predators for us). If this happens we may neglect the CB hate in order to add some anti discard hate (maybe the Dark confidants should be welcomed once again to the board).

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

P.S.side note: EE is being great for me not only as a nice general purppose anti hate card (dealing with Trinis, chalices, hate bears, P Pillars, ....) but it also helped me (before Decay) to deal with CB, plus it reveals as 0 CC with Ad Nauseam.

heathen

10-08-2012, 12:31 PM

I know Chrome Mox gets a lot of criticism, but I've replaced a Burning Wish with a Chrome Mox in the GP Ghent list (so, 2 Chrome Mox and 2 Burning Wish main) and I'm liking the change. I don't run Grim Tutor in the side so my Burning Wishes are not as good as they would be with Grim Tutor, and the extra Chrome Mox makes my Ad Nauseams better. As long as I have a reasonable life total, I am comfortable casting Ad Nauseam with no mana floating because I know there are Petals and Chrome Moxen to get me going again.

I use Burning Wish rarely, and three of them in the main felt like too much. Often they feel like dead cards. I don't feel comfortable cutting them entirely, though.

Unrelated question: you're on the play, turn 1 of game 1 and you have a Cabal Therapy in hand but no Gitaxian Probe. You know your opponent is playing Dredge. What card do you name with Therapy?

Fatal

10-08-2012, 12:45 PM

Tammit67

10-08-2012, 03:41 PM

Lion's Eye Diamond for sure.

Reason - It only enabler for turn 1 insta go off, other target's aren't so good - for example cabal therapy is also dangerous but even if you discard it he still can cast Putrid Imp, discard dredgers/bridge then flashback it. Shooting Breakthrough/Fateless looting also doesn't bring enough good results.

Agreed. If you stop the explosiveness, it is hard for them to strip your hand away in time.

Similarly, I'd play out as many of my artifact sources as I could before therapy gets active. Yes it can be nature's claimed this way, but they should absolutely have more important things to be doing than hoping to destroy an artifact after diluting their deck with artifact hate

heathen

10-08-2012, 06:32 PM

What if you know they are playing a non-LED version of Dredge? Would you name Putrid Imp? Faithless Looting? Careful Study? Something else?

Tammit67

10-08-2012, 07:12 PM

What if you know they are playing a non-LED version of Dredge? Would you name Putrid Imp? Faithless Looting? Careful Study? Something else?

Breakthrough would be my next name, as they still need speed. I don't see how relevant the non-LED version is these days, it is decidedly slower and has been uprooted by LED or manaless

aaronm678

10-09-2012, 07:26 AM

If you guys could point out particular instances you notice that would be very helpful for those of us who are less experienced. I know I'd appreciate it.

I only saw the first couple games, but this is what I would have done differently.

Game 1

1) His hand was faster than any elves hand, even with Glimpse. On a therapy here, I'd name GSZ, since it was clear he was splashing, and his hand was going to have trouble beating Teeg.

In Game 2:

1) Against non-blue, you should board in Ill-Gotten Gains, and he also should have waited for another land drop/mana, as there wasn't really any reason to try there. His eventual line would have been something like BW -> Grim -> IGG -> Grim -> Tendrils, had he boarded correctly, he was very close to hitting this line.

2) Obviously he played his cards without thinking about his eventual line. After he realized he screwed up, he should have gone EtW probably (though against elves this is a little risky, since they can vomit out a lot of dudes).

If you guys could point out particular instances you notice that would be very helpful for those of us who are less experienced. I know I'd appreciate it.

I only saw the first couple games, but this is what I would have done differently.

Game 1

1) His hand was faster than any elves hand, even with Glimpse. On a therapy here, I'd name GSZ, since it was clear he was splashing, and his hand was going to have trouble beating Teeg.

In Game 2:

1) Against non-blue, you should board in Ill-Gotten Gains, and he also should have waited for another land drop/mana, as there wasn't really any reason to try there. His eventual line would have been something like BW -> Grim -> IGG -> Grim -> Tendrils, had he boarded correctly, he was very close to hitting this line.

2) Obviously he played his cards without thinking about his eventual line. After he realized he screwed up, he should have gone EtW probably (though against elves this is a little risky, since they can vomit out a lot of dudes).

EDIT:
Match 2 Game 1:
1) I'm not really sure why he just runs his second therapy into pierce -- pierce is fairly easy to play around, where he can combo off as soon as he finds a land or petal to get rid of snare through pierce. I think the ponder is much more expendable than the therapy here.

2) I wouldn't board in bob ever against a deck with bolt...there isn't any way he drops his bolts.

Game 2:

1) I definitely wouldn't turn 1 brainstorm here...you don't really gain anything from it, as his opponent was clearly playing a slow control deck. This was a pretty huge misplay, as it caused him in his 2nd turn to crack his scalding tarn when it was pretty clear his opponent was holding up stifle. It's much more powerful to be able to say Land -> Go on turn 2, where your opponent just isn't doing anything if he wants to leave up stifle. Also, his opponent was on such a slow deck, he can just sit with his fetch until his opponent does something, or until he draws a duress/therapy/etc.

In this match, I'm not sure game 1 was particularly winnable, but game 2 was VERY winnable had he played it correctly. His opponent wasn't doing anything the entire game, and he was just throwing away his cards trying to be too aggressive.

I'll probably try and edit the post when I can watch the rest.

Sloshthedark

10-09-2012, 02:01 PM

I'll probably try and edit the post when I can watch the rest.

I'm in a half of it myself, it gets complicated against blue decks... it could be really interesting to discuss views on the plays in detail, which I find most interesting in the archetype and more beneficial then sharing minor decklist tweaks

heathen

10-09-2012, 02:32 PM

... it could be really interesting to discuss views on the plays in detail, which I find most interesting in the archetype and more beneficial then sharing minor decklist tweaks

I completely agree with this. I'm also going to rewatch it as I find time. I probably won't be able to come up with good solutions, being inexperienced with the deck, but I'm sure I will at least have questions.

emidln

10-09-2012, 07:01 PM

So, I've been playing this on Cockatrice:

1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Grim Tutor
4 Infernal Tutor
2 Snapcaster Mage

3 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
2 Island
2 Swamp

SB: 3 Karakas
SB: 3 Virtue's Ruin
SB: 2 Tropical Island
SB: 4 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1 Duress

I've been using these sideboarding plans for g2. Game 3 depends on what I see in g2. For example, some maverick decks run Mindbreak Trap, so I need to bring back Therapy.

vs Maverick
--------------------------
-2 Snapcaster Mage
-4 Cabal Therapy
-3 Duress
-4 Gitaxian Probe
+4 Abrupt Decay
+1 Chain of Vapor
+3 Karakas
+3 Virtue's Ruin
+2 Tropical Island

vs RUG
----------
-1 Grim Tutor
-1 Gitaxian Probe
+1 Duress
+1 Tendrils of Agony

vs Miracles
--------------
-2 Snapcaster Mage
-1 Grim Tutor
-2 Gitaxian Probe
-1 Island
-1 Swamp
+4 Abrupt Decay
+2 Tropical Island
+1 Duress

vs Dredge
-------------
-2 Snapcaster Mage
+1 Duress
+1 Chain of Vapor

Changes from last time:

-1 Snapcaster Mage
+1 Grim Tutor

I tested out a Grim Tutor and liked it. I don't think I'd want to draw the 2nd, but the first seems fine. I still like Snapcaster Mages, so two are still available.

Most of the Chain of Vapors, all the Wipe Aways, misc copies of EE and/or Dark Confidant are replaced by Abrupt Decay and lands to pay for it. It's really good. It's not optimal vs Maverick, but it's still better than a Duress is ever going to be. You still need Karakas/Virtue's Ruin for Maverick since getting BG can be tricky. In case you didn't notice, there is synergy between extra lands and Virtue's Ruin (which is the only 3 mana spell worth it vs them since it kills off all threats).

I haven't been able to experiment with Abrupt Decay vs RUG, but I'm not sure how many copies I'd really want. I sorta just want Trop Islands to beat Wasteland more often.

Swamp #2 seems to be suspect and may get swapped for a third sea or 9th fetch. I like having 4 basics, but I don't want 3 islands and the Swamp has caused me to mull some otherwise fine hands.

I won't give you percentages for this deck, but I believe it is the best thing you can be doing in legacy right now. I'd play it tomorrow. I recommend that you give it a try. It's fun, explosive, and does some very unfair things.

bennotsi

10-10-2012, 03:48 AM

Great list emidln! Could you perhaps elaborate a bit more on the use of Snapcaster Mage? I have never played with it in ANT, but at a first glance it seems a bit like a dead card to me.

Also, aren't you going a little overboard against Maverick? Boarding 13 cards against what isn't your most difficult matchup seems like a bit of overkill.

On the other hand, I get that you already run 4 Abrupt Decay and 3 Karakas in the board for the actually difficult matchups and therefore you might as well use them against Maverick too.

Sloshthedark

10-10-2012, 07:14 AM

Inexperienced? The guy won the GP and played finals in a major European tournament.
I don't like Timo's list and think he is really lucky guy but I'm far from denying him experience, skills or results... I meant LSV, there you see what I meant inexperienced, that guy is a very good player (or obv. should be ;) after watching videos by Tom Martell I'm a bit skeptic) but just picking it up a deck that is not "standard magic" he doesn't feel the dynamic of the deck and what to expect

If you guys could point out particular instances you notice that would be very helpful for those of us who are less experienced. I know I'd appreciate it.

well I'd have to watch it all over again, and it's always a matter of playstyle and feeling and it's open to discussion, after reading aaronm678 post I decided to finish it as it became rather time consuming.. I hope a kept the ideas intact and without nonsense, but I'm unable to watch it all over again, the description may be somehow cryptic but you still have to watch the videos to know what I'm talking about so you will find out... I realized I would have made few mistake myself, anyway this is my point of view - here you go:

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/channel-lsv-storm-legacy-event/

----------------------------------------------------------------------

M1G1

7:15 If he wanted to Probe, he should have before Brainstorm or save 2 life, I'd probe before brainstorm

SB: I'm not sure how to sideboard with the list (op has white)... I'd probably go -BW -Duress +Iggy +CoV or -IT +Grim Tutor, -Duress +CoV

M1G2

-he plays and sacs the stuff and than counts... Ad nauseam off 9 life 1 floating 2LED, 1DR spent is not good option imho, although Timo would have killed that guy I'd prefer BW->Grim Tutor->BW->Empty the Warrens 16 tokens, 2xtherapy, 2x attack

M1G3

-I'd duress T1 (that's questionable, I prefer gaining threshold faster and effectively setting up for T2 kill off Brainstorm knowing Op hand), T2 ponder, keep fetch, T3 draw BS, fetch, than BS (hitting Petal, fetch, probe, ritual gives me threshold) and most likely Ad Nauseam with some B floating and Kill him

----------------------------------------------------------------------

M2G1

1:00 I would have Probed playing Underground sea, but not with Volcanic island so I'd draw a fetch from the ponder

1:31 that is real dilemma, the way he played it is kind of ok, but what if Opp did not Spell Pierce the Therapy? take Snapcasters (and have your cantrips countered) or Spell Pierces (and be under clock+Snaplock?) ... I'd likely ponder, if he Spell Pierces -> Therapy Snapcasters, if not do nothing/according to ponder

3:15 the plan should be BW for Duress, BS -> kill ...not IT-BS(wtf?) ... after wasteland and Standstill he should decide 1, long game - don't break Standstill for a loong time until you are ready/have to... or 2, break it - break it now with BS, if you draw a black mana source (and he would) in 2 cards you can Ad Nausem B floating Opp's only out is FoW, if not - just continue... I'd break it while he is tapped out LSV waits just few turns, his hand is no way better than before, and plays IT(why?), than could have fetched a basic swamp and have some chances with IT

SB: IT out? (he clearly doesn't like it), I'd go -Probe -Cabal -Chrome mox -lotus petal +3xDark Confidant +CoV as a standard or personally even -Ad Nauseam +EtW -BW +ToA -IT +Grim Tutor

M2G2

-T1 BS(wtf?) it's the worst opening you can choose, I'd go Tarn wait, or BS EoT if I had to... and there is not much reason to, I'd rather wait, you have all time in the world...
-in the BS obv. you want IT not BW...
-petal duress or fetch next upkeep, fails to do that once again
-actually you can run into stifle on purpouse and go petal->Cabal ritual, LED->IT->EtW if you had them in (that's why I prefer EtW main most G2 main)...

1:45 Surgical Extraction is REALY good agains ANT, opp played that early and poorly

-from wasteland onward it seems lost cause, interesting how all the happened in 2 turns, actually it's not lost, he still has infinite time, but triple BW is horrible

3:05 he has to play petal not LED, if countered, Snapcaster->Extraction would be really bad

7:27 real dillema, I'd go Volcanic island, you really want to eat some counters with BW, but only available is Badlands, Ponder eats REB anyway, I'd also fetch basic island (just to note badlands->naturally draw rituals line is possible)

8:19 it gets really complicated but you keep LED, Dark Confidant, ponder .. you really want the LED / mana and he has ratchet bomb in hand
- in case he doesn't play Standstill next turn, he will Snapcounterspell the Confidant(and you play LED, Cabal, IT->PiF, Cabal, IT->LED, BW->kill and hope he has nothing off possible Standstill)
- if he does play something/attack with Conclave, you still play Dark Confidant, as it enables Cabal therapy for Snapcaster and the line above

this all if he counters the Cabal therapy you're playing this turn for sure
- he might play Snapcaster on Stifle to not lose this turn (take Standstill)
- further you play depending on what you see in the hand = play confidant or go for the kill (likely under Standstill) which could or could not be neutralized be therapy...
-you can also go straight for the kill if he FoWs or you draw ritual/free spell = sac Confidant to Therapy, LED, Cabal, IT->IT-> Toa

= you keep LED from the Ponder =)

10:12 why therapy? you have to name Snapcaster and any other counterspell stops you, Snapcaster-stifle still a possibility (and you can't double Toa from this position), and you cannot go off this turn, so you save it for the next turn ... and better go BW (duress/IT), Ponder, he should counter the first if he has way to do so, and maybe REB the second, next turn you BW again or Therapy go for it

- interesting matchup, I like opponents deck; with PiF storm you should not lose G1 you have all time in the world and eventually roll over them with PiF
----------------------------------------------------------------------

M3G1

0:58 I'd be strongly tempted to fetch Underground sea, so you can setup nice semi-protected T2 kill, good player will not waste you after Ponder unless he has nothing else to play, so especially holding BS and Counterspell he won't
- a brainstorm later it's obvious it would have been better, he is all in on the first ritual, opp should (might not be so obvious after thinking it through) counter it and fails to do so...

SB: -Chrome mox -Probe -Ponder -Cabal ritual -BW -Ad Nauseam -IT +3Dark Confidant +CoV +EtW +Toa +Grim Tutor for me
- a little soft to expected Ethersworn Cannonist, keeping Ad Nauseam on play could be an option for me

- the other side of the story is here http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/channel-cheon-stoneforge-legacy-event/
he doen't SB good - Zealous persecution should definitely be in, maybe -2 lands - jace +swords/jitte +persecution +BEB

M3G2

I'd take BW being the opponent (drawing LED = 12 goblins, has another discard spell)

0:52 if he has to he should BS off petal or keep it to hide things from discard or play petal+fetch and wait (and maybe run into SP), not sure what's right but I'd do the 1st, put back swamp and fetch, probe, fetch sea and ponder, keeping swamp instead of petal is not good imho

2:37 now the Petal would be better - you might Ponder into Therapy for SM and make 16 goblins

3:27 Iggy with ToA in hand is 1 storm short, Opp won't BS into it, with BW in hand you do not have R for second BW->ToA
- BW->duress might be an option for taking the equipment if opp BS and shuffle with SM... I'd shuffle the ponder though

4:32 Inquisition should take LED

6:11 Ad Nauseam would not be good, PiF is a sure kill unless he has Surgical Extraction, Ad Nauseam would mean hitting the last BW and enough mana to get around Extraction on either rituals
- shouldn't have sacrificed second LED, drawing IT or Pif is still an out

M3G3

- terrible hand on draw, keepable on play, with Dark ritual T2 EtW is possible
- fetch Sea obv., you can't capitalize on possible brainstorm/ponder, and volcanic off delta means the same/worse so you intend to fetch island ... btw. standard Esper plays 0-2 wasteland, mostly 1, unless played as a tempo with stifles which is rare

1:27 .. omg what did I just write =/ sigh...

1:52 fetch volcanic island? why? you get rid of shuffle effect with BS in hand into risk you tried T1 to avoid

2:46 BS EoT, what does that accomplish? opp shuffles that for you? LOL, crazy world (I'd put Pif then Island back)

5:19 interesting situation in the ponder - my plan? draw Petal, leave Ponder, ToA, attack, play Petal, play BW, sacrificing both LED or just one -> Toa for 8, next turn draw Ponder and ToA, attack, play Therapy+Toa or Therapy, Ponder into any manasource according to what you sacrificed, play it and ToA ... as I think about it I'd sac both LED into BW, as it goes around Spell pierce and next turn it's safer (therapy naming Spell pierce)... Surgical Extraction kills me, Snapcaster even more
-or simply sac Dark Confidant to therapy for Fow and EtW for 10 goblins which is better and I would have made the same mistake and run into FoW with my masterplan same as LSV did

9:44 fetch->ToA for 4, getting fresh cards is a better option imho

----------------------------------------------------------------------

M4G1

- probably mull 5, ok,
- I'd not fetch, chances on Wasteland are higher than Stifle and you show your colors

1:04 obviously name Breakthrough, once you realize it's non LED dredge (tribe, LED expensive on MTGO), I'd have missed with Faithless Looting (idea some dredges play less Breakthroughts led me there), which is bad call anyway, so as stated in some posts higher - name LED and Breakthrough as those are most troublesome

2:13 finaly he realizes IT is good, Therapy should name IT/LED, probably IT

4:20 I'd keep Ad Nausem, ship BW+IT, play Therapy ... that grants threshold so can next turn Ad Nauseam with floating (if land is played); keeping IT is the same but -2mana, would be better drawing another ritual (->PiF) which is less probable, you ignore Opp discard as he would name Cabal ritual anyway, no point hiding Ad Nauseam - keeping BW accomplishes nothing, you just bin it while tutoring for Ad Nauseam, it's better in the deck if you can float Red in the process somehow

6:11 - PIF line arises instantly in my mind (he ignores the card all the time), nice one with IGGY maybe better in vacuum

SB: -2BW -PiF -basic land -Ponder +2Cage +CoV +Grim Tutor +IGGY for me (or - 2 discard, but i like the former better, catching T2 spell is often crucial)

M4G2
note that IT -> Grafdiggers cage is an option

2:10 IT again

3:05 I'd Brainstorm here, definitely with my decklist, too many dead cards in hand, can't imagine what should be in Ponder not to shuffle (something like LED+IT)... this decision is somehow experience/playstyle based, can't really justify that =) it just works for me so
- I'd rather keep the ponder, draw fetch, next turn draw LED, fetch and BS

4:45 therapy should name cabal ritual, he doesn't know about the second BS
5:40 ponder first
6:40 fetch, ponder
7:45 should name Cabal ritual, not like that matters much
8:05 fetch, ponder

----------------------------------------------------------------------

emidln

10-10-2012, 11:36 AM

Also, aren't you going a little overboard against Maverick? Boarding 13 cards against what isn't your most difficult matchup seems like a bit of overkill.

On the other hand, I get that you already run 4 Abrupt Decay and 3 Karakas in the board for the actually difficult matchups and therefore you might as well use them against Maverick too.

Maverick is an interesting situation in that they are much better at bringing two hatebears or MoM + hatebear to bear on you than you are at disrupting them. In fact, they are so good at it that they match us evenly, winning a lot of games on the play where they can put you on combo due to scouting/you opening on lotus petal/gitaxian probe. They typically have around 9 threats in g1, and then side in more stuff for us. This means you're likely losing 50% (this is actually a little lower, probably close to 40-45% due to mulligans, and them not playing optimally because of unknown information) without a sideboard when you lose the die roll. If you think Probe + Therapy is going to stop them from a turn 2 hate bear you're delusional.

Once you accept that they're going to have (a) hatebear(s), it's a matter of picking the most effective removal for the hatebear. Bounce spells are the worst unless you're going to win before they get a turn 3 via bounce + combo every game (hint: you won't). Ideally you want something permanent. Permanents answers look like Dread of Night/Darkblast, Massacre, Virtue's Ruin/Infest, Engineered Explosives, and Karakas (which is pseudo-permanent). It's even better if your permanent answer can get around Mother of Runes/Sylvan Safekeeper (Darkblast is bad here, as is Abrupt Decay) and that it doesn't get stopped by hatebears they already play (Massacre/EE), although you can still play some of these, you just need another plan for Teeg. Even Virtue's Ruin isn't perfect, since, while it only costs a single black, it does cost 3 to start which means Thalia + Wasteland can really hamper it as a plan (however, for that 3-4 mana, you wrath them, buying a lot of time).

My mix breaks down like this:

Karakas - bounces Teeg/Thalia (maindeck threats, 8-10 copies postboard), casts Virtue's Ruin, misses Canonist / Thorn / Stony Silence / Mindbreak Trap
Virtue's Ruin - kills all hatebears, misses Thorn / Stony Silence / Mindbreak Trap
Abrupt Decay - kills all hatebears, although is nullified by Mom/Safekeeper, kills Thorn/Stony Silence
Chain of Vapor - bounces any permanent hate, nullified by Mom/Safekeeper

If I find out something like Mindbreak Trap is being played, I can downgrade some number of decays and chain into Therapies.

I don't believe it would be profitable to maindeck solutions to Maverick (even with it being a significant metagame force). This is because the cards you need to maindeck are really bad in other matchups and contribute to the combo very little. You would likely want 8 effective ways of dealing with hatebears, and I don't see how we can do that consistently on the draw without playing Decays, Chains, or Karakas maindeck. To do so, I'd need to cut down on utility cards that are good in almost every matchup and smooth the deck (Snapcaster Mage, Grim Tutor) or discard spells (it's often important to be able to use two against a blue deck, and 7 + 2 snapcasters seems just right).

Could you perhaps elaborate a bit more on the use of Snapcaster Mage? I have never played with it in ANT, but at a first glance it seems a bit like a dead card to me.

Snapcasters do a lot of things:

block (and sometimes kill think Gaddock Teeg, Ethersworn Canonist)
flashback therapy
filter mana (blue/white/red into black)
add mana (flashback Cabal Rit w/Thresh or allow using LED to cast Ad Naus)
draw cards at different pricepoints/situations (flashback brainstorm, ponder, probe)
disrupt twice (flashback duress, flashback therapy sac'ing snapcaster)
double tendrils
whittle opponents life (they can even turn sideways, lessening required storm)

They do this all while adding potentially significant storm (consider Snapcaster on a Ritual followed by Therapy +3 mana, filter blue into black)

aaronm678

10-10-2012, 12:07 PM

Slosh, that is really awesome, you went way more all out than I did. I agree that analyzing plays like this is much more helpful than arguing over the last 2 or 3 slots in the list.

When you run grim in the sb with the bw version, why would you board out an infernal for it? It seems to me like if you're boarding out anything for it, it should be another bw. Talking about M2 alternate sb.

guillemnicolau

10-10-2012, 01:16 PM

My mix breaks down like this:

Karakas - bounces Teeg/Thalia (maindeck threats, 8-10 copies postboard), casts Virtue's Ruin, misses Canonist / Thorn / Stony Silence / Mindbreak Trap
Virtue's Ruin - kills all hatebears, misses Thorn / Stony Silence / Mindbreak Trap
Abrupt Decay - kills all hatebears, although is nullified by Mom/Safekeeper, kills Thorn/Stony Silence
Chain of Vapor - bounces any permanent hate, nullified by Mom/Safekeeper

Why not Wipe Away? I've been playing with 2 in the side since the re-rising of counterbalance and they are really useful, bouncing anything that bother's you, and without having to play green (that's really important).

About the snapcaster's, I had already thought about it and I'll give them a try, as a 2-3 of in the side, they seem tasty... :cool: (I would probably change the wipe's for chain of vapors)

emidln

10-10-2012, 01:45 PM

I played Wipe Away before. It is serviceable, but Abrupt Decay is much better. I splash green solely for Abrupt Decay because of how insane it is against CB decks while being clutch in most other matchups as well.

Dark Ritual

10-10-2012, 01:58 PM

Why not Wipe Away? I've been playing with 2 in the side since the re-rising of counterbalance and they are really useful, bouncing anything that bother's you, and without having to play green (that's really important).

About the snapcaster's, I had already thought about it and I'll give them a try, as a 2-3 of in the side, they seem tasty... :cool: (I would probably change the wipe's for chain of vapors)

Ummmm wipe away does not work against a savvy CB player who floats a 3. Abrupt decay simply answers it no matter what while being versatile in just about every other matchup. So you have to play green, who cares? Wipe away is a card I can't stand at all and abrupt decay is just infinitely superior to it. Test with wipe away against CTop, then test with decay against CTop. One is clearly superior to the other and even better is that countertop decks don't even run wasteland so boarding in two nonbasics for 2 basics is basically an upgrade. Abrupt decay also works much better against thalia versus wipe away as 3 mana versus 4 mana is an enormous difference. Play the card if you want but then you'll be losing percentage points due to playing a suboptimal sideboard.

Also if you paid attention a few pages ago emidln had wipe away in his SB. Then abrupt decay was spoiled. Moments later wipe away was no longer a card. Funny how that works.

Non LED Dredge is called manaless dredge, and if you can't win against manaless dredge I pity you as they are a lot slower than us. Dredge decks with lands and such always pack LED because of how good LED is after looting and in terms of how much faster it makes the deck overall. Winning on turn 1 is always nice in legacy no matter how you slice it.

Sloshthedark

10-10-2012, 02:47 PM

@emidln - Maverick SB is overkill, but why not (I play Deed btw. =D)... I'd rather prefer 1 Etw, 1 Extirpate/2nd ToA somewhere...
why 2 Trops and not Trop/Bayou split?
I understand why they are good, still you board out both Snapcasters most time...

When you run grim in the sb with the bw version, why would you board out an infernal for it? It seems to me like if you're boarding out anything for it, it should be another bw. Talking about M2 alternate sb.

TNX,

Extirpate, BW-IT->PiF loop is possible (costs the same as Grim-Pif Loop), Grim tutor searches lonely Chain of Vapor

I'd board into 5 tutors only when speed is needed and EtW are not good enough = TES, Dredge

ThomasDowd

10-10-2012, 03:38 PM

emidln

10-10-2012, 03:50 PM

@emidln - Maverick SB is overkill, but why not (I play Deed btw. =D)... I'd rather prefer 1 Etw, 1 Extirpate/2nd ToA somewhere...
why 2 Trops and not Trop/Bayou split?

When casting Abrupt Decay, you always need green and black. I don't need my green land to also tap for black.

I already play a 2nd Tendrils in my sb, in addition to being able to flash back via PiF/2x Snapcaster Mage.

ETW is garbage. You don't need it vs RUG. You don't want it vs Miracles, Dredge, Reanimator, anything that can cast Show and Tell (hint: Griselbrand has lifelink), Maverick, or anything BG-based. That leaves...Goblins? You probably don't want to cast it vs Goblins either.

Sloshthedark

10-11-2012, 03:43 AM

Timo Schunemann on UBR ANT

http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=3216

MTG Junkie

10-11-2012, 01:22 PM

Sloshthedark- Good find,thanks for posting

One thing I wished he addressed was why he didn't play any bounce in his board. Me personally I don't feel safe without atleast two bounce spells. It would just be cool to know his thought process on it.

Article was good though,liked his casual style of writing.

Thanks again.

heathen

10-11-2012, 01:43 PM

One thing I wished he addressed was why he didn't play any bounce in his board. Me personally I don't feel safe without atleast two bounce spells. It would just be cool to know his thought process on it.

I was a bit disappointed with that article. His general thought process seems to be, "draw the exact cards you need and don't be stupid." Gee, why didn't I think of that?

I did like the detail he went into about his sideboarding plans.

Koby

10-11-2012, 02:03 PM

@emidln
Thanks for posting your list and SB plan. Looking forward to testing with it in the coming weeks.

pocari79

10-11-2012, 02:53 PM

Went to a small legacy tournament at Friendly Troll last night to gain some experience with this deck. I played the GP winning list with some small changes. In the maindeck, I cut the chrome mox for an extra underground sea and changed the two scalding tarns into two bloodstained mires as I wanted to get as many chances to get a basic swamp. In the sideboard, I played diabolic tutor instead of grim tutor because well, i don't have a grim tutor but i wanted to be able to burning wish for a tutor effect. Sure, a 4cc tutor is a lot but I couldn't find of another "good" tutor.

tournament was only 3 rounds which was nice as we'd finish early on a weeknight.

Round 1 - Dredge (2-0)

He was a new dredge player and wasn't sure what kind of hand to keep and had to mull to 4 both games. I just waited and sculpted a hand in game 1 and game 2 I played a turn 1 grafdigger's cage and he gave up.

Round 2 - Esper Stoneblade (0-2)

Game 1 was rather unfortunate as I was able to get him down to no cards in hand while my entire hand was mana and a combination of ponder and brainstorm. I burned through 3 probes, 3 ponders and 3 brainstorms and couldn't find any of my tutors or wishes which was pretty depressing. Game 2 was kind of weird. We were both just trading discard spells and he was able to draw into brainstorms before I was and that was pretty much the game. This matchup seems kind of brutal as if i can't find the right combo pieces fast enough, he's got access to discard and counterspells and snapcaster gets to rebuy both of those spells which really hurts. Not sure if i just had lousy luck against him or it's a hard matchup?

Round 3 - Bant (2-0)

Game 1 was a joke as i probed him on turn 1 and saw 2 cliques, 1 plows and lands. I immediately therapied the cliques away and then kept digging for my missing piece and he just drew nothing when I went off. Game 2 was a bit scary as he was able to resolve a turn 2 knight and I couldn't draw any fetchlands so my lands were all wasteable. There was one turn where I was tapped out and he had nothing of note in hand and he was about to untap with his knight. He drew a wasteland and killed one of my lands and then decided to attack with the knight which I thought was incorrect. I would have thought he would waste my other land and then he would have been able to apply real pressure. Instead, I had another land to play with on my next turn. On my next turn, I decided to go for it as I felt like I wouldn't have another land for a while but I didn't have enough mana to get a past in flames. I ended up having Bx8 floating and cast a burning wish with a tendrils in my hand. I was pretty sure he had a force in hand and I was all tapped out and storm was at 5 so my only win was wish for tendrils and then tendrils him twice. He ended up not forcing my wish as he thought he could force whatever I wished for and well, can't force all copies of tendrils!

The ANT deck was a lot more resilent than I expected. I was initially afraid of playing against decks that have around 10+ counterspells but with all the discard, it doesn't seem that bad. Esper stoneblade though seems like a tough matchup as the deck is proactive and reactive at the same time. Never got to use the diabolic tutor so i'm not sure how relevant it will be.

Tammit67

10-17-2012, 11:30 AM

The ANT deck was a lot more resilient than I expected. I was initially afraid of playing against decks that have around 10+ counterspells but with all the discard, it doesn't seem that bad. Esper stoneblade though seems like a tough matchup as the deck is proactive and reactive at the same time. Never got to use the diabolic tutor so I'm not sure how relevant it will be.

I have found Esperblade to be not hard at all. Sometimes, sure, they have t1 discard, t2 stoneforge w/ force... but they don't have that much of a clock and only a few of counters. I've been laying out the LEDs against them and just waiting patiently. Postboard, bring in a couple more discard spells and either hit counters or whatever equipment they tutored for, and they can only hit for a couple a turn.

Koby

10-17-2012, 12:13 PM

I took emidln's list to GPSJ side events to terrorize the countryside. I went 4-1, and 3-3 in the two events. Matches in which I won, about half were no contest. Against RUG, Reanimator, it came down to heavy discard clearing the way to PIF winning.

My losses:
* Reanimator in Game 3 after both grinding each other out. Karakas was very very strong. I played against two Reanimator lists in the first event, and was able to crush the second match easily with Karakas.
* RUG in Game 3, when I was on the ropes against a quick Mongoose with Daze/Pierce/FOW backup. Turns out PIF isn't very good when you only have 1 CRit to flashback. (punts)
* Maverick in two games. Probe G1 seeing Thalia, Teeg, and GSZ, along with Hierarch and Wasteland. Ya, nice hand. G2 was more shenanigans. 1-of CotV @ 0 and Surgical Extraction on Brainstorm followed by Scavenging Ooze made my hand with 4 artifacts rather hopeless.
* Miracles, in Game 3 in which my opponent kept a no-land hand and proceeded to draw into both lands and Counterlock. I didn't have a 2nd land in play after 15 turns and lost to Jace lock.

Overall, the deck is very powerful. Along the way I was able to consistently win on Turn 2; beat Belcher with a lucky turn 1 Ad Nauseam (whiffed on combo, but drew enough Duress to lock him out from winning); and sideboard into the land plan to give a big WTF moment to alot of opponents. Aside from some of my bad keeps/math I think I did pretty well.

ThomasDowd

10-17-2012, 01:07 PM

I took emidln's list to GPSJ side events to terrorize the countryside. I went 4-1, and 3-3 in the two events. Matches in which I won, about half were no contest. Against RUG, Reanimator, it came down to heavy discard clearing the way to PIF winning.

My losses:
* Reanimator in Game 3 after both grinding each other out. Karakas was very very strong. I played against two Reanimator lists in the first event, and was able to crush the second match easily with Karakas.
[b]* RUG in Game 3, when I was on the ropes against a quick Mongoose with Daze/Pierce/FOW backup. Turns out PIF isn't very good when you only have 1 CRit to flashback. (punts)[\b]
* Maverick in two games. Probe G1 seeing Thalia, Teeg, and GSZ, along with Hierarch and Wasteland. Ya, nice hand. G2 was more shenanigans. 1-of CotV @ 0 and Surgical Extraction on Brainstorm followed by Scavenging Ooze made my hand with 4 artifacts rather hopeless.
* Miracles, in Game 3 in which my opponent kept a no-land hand and proceeded to draw into both lands and Counterlock. I didn't have a 2nd land in play after 15 turns and lost to Jace lock.

Overall, the deck is very powerful. Along the way I was able to consistently win on Turn 2; beat Belcher with a lucky turn 1 Ad Nauseam (whiffed on combo, but drew enough Duress to lock him out from winning); and sideboard into the land plan to give a big WTF moment to alot of opponents. Aside from some of my bad keeps/math I think I did pretty well.

Have definitely had that happen to me before. I guess since you probed it is kind of hard to scoop without info (he might put you on belcher?). but that is pretty rough.

how were the snapcasters? that is my only real question with the whole deck.

land plan seems great vs rug.

Koby

10-17-2012, 02:08 PM

Have definitely had that happen to me before. I guess since you probed it is kind of hard to scoop without info (he might put you on belcher?). but that is pretty rough.

how were the snapcasters? that is my only real question with the whole deck.

land plan seems great vs rug.

Against Belcher -
Game 1 on the play, Probe/Therapy on Belcher, turn 2, Snapcaster flashing back Probe, therapy again. Bought enough time to get a combo off.
Game 2 - lost on turn 1.
Game 3 - on the play, saw a turn 1 Ad Nauseam, went for it, stopped at 1 life trying to look for a 2nd I.M.S. to fire off CRits, and decided to just use the 1 remaining Petal to cast Duress and pass. Got there the next turn.

Snaps were fine, but a little slow and redundant. I think BWish is still better, as I felt many times my losses were caused by a lack of tutors. I am going for the following changes:
-2 Snapcaster Mage
-1 Swamp
-1 Island
+2 Burning Wish
+1 Chrome Mox
+1 Badlands

Sideboard can stay the same, but I'm thinking that Dread of Night might just be better than Virtue's Ruin. Abrupt Decay can handle all their green threats, but can't handle against an active Mother of Runes. Thalia/wasteland/mana denial will be a real thing against them, so going with a cheaper solution seems more appropriate than trying to sweep on the big side. Abrupt Decay was very good too, and would have won my match against Miracles if I ever saw a 2nd land.

alderon666

10-17-2012, 11:10 PM

Against Belcher -
Game 1 on the play, Probe/Therapy on Belcher, turn 2, Snapcaster flashing back Probe, therapy again. Bought enough time to get a combo off.
Game 2 - lost on turn 1.
Game 3 - on the play, saw a turn 1 Ad Nauseam, went for it, stopped at 1 life trying to look for a 2nd I.M.S. to fire off CRits, and decided to just use the 1 remaining Petal to cast Duress and pass. Got there the next turn.

Snaps were fine, but a little slow and redundant. I think BWish is still better, as I felt many times my losses were caused by a lack of tutors. I am going for the following changes:
-2 Snapcaster Mage
-1 Swamp
-1 Island
+2 Burning Wish
+1 Chrome Mox
+1 Badlands

Sideboard can stay the same, but I'm thinking that Dread of Night might just be better than Virtue's Ruin. Abrupt Decay can handle all their green threats, but can't handle against an active Mother of Runes. Thalia/wasteland/mana denial will be a real thing against them, so going with a cheaper solution seems more appropriate than trying to sweep on the big side. Abrupt Decay was very good too, and would have won my match against Miracles if I ever saw a 2nd land.

On my limited testing BW -> Past in Flames, while I was casting Infernal Tutor to double up on LED/Dark Ritual/Cabal Ritual was very good.

BW is worse than it is on TES, because the all-in on the DR is not a viable plan. And goblins is just not a thing now there's too much Batterkull/Terminus/random crap going on, and we don't even have Chant. But grabbing Tendrils/discard/Past in Flames is still very valuable.

I once suggested Augur of Bolas as Cabal Therapy fodder while giving you a pseudo-Ponder. The 1/3 body is also relevant and might save you some valuable life. On my testing it proved ok. It's kinda slow, but we've commited to the slower plan already. It could be a option if you need more disruption while keeping the threath density up. Wouldn't play more than 2 tough...

emidln

10-18-2012, 10:16 AM

Snapcaster Mage casts what you want, not random stuff off the top. I win a lot of games by playing mini tendrils and following that up with Snapcaster on Tendrils (either that turn or the following turn).

apistat_commander

10-18-2012, 11:15 AM

Snaps were fine, but a little slow and redundant. I think BWish is still better, as I felt many times my losses were caused by a lack of tutors. I am going for the following changes:
-2 Snapcaster Mage
-1 Swamp
-1 Island
+2 Burning Wish
+1 Chrome Mox
+1 Badlands

Sideboard can stay the same, but I'm thinking that Dread of Night might just be better than Virtue's Ruin. Abrupt Decay can handle all their green threats, but can't handle against an active Mother of Runes. Thalia/wasteland/mana denial will be a real thing against them, so going with a cheaper solution seems more appropriate than trying to sweep on the big side. Abrupt Decay was very good too, and would have won my match against Miracles if I ever saw a 2nd land.

This is why I like the UBr list. Having 8 threats (IT, BW, Ad Naus) vs. 6 threats (IT, Grim, Ad Naus) can really make a difference. Granted, you get two tutor hands more often but that means that you can burn the extra tutor to get protection/business or bait out a counter. Plus EtW allows you to get there with hands that might not make it otherwise. I find that this is especially important in tough MUs because winning quickly is sometimes superior to trying to out-discard all of their counters.

Speaking of sideboards, I currently have ~4 slots dedicated to killing white hatebears and I am using 2 Slaughter Pact and 2 Deathmark. Dread of Night has seemed a little lackluster to me because it doesn't kill 2 of the three main hatebears people bring in against us. Having a 1 mana Wish-able kill spell is pretty nice as well. Is there a reason people moved away from Slaughter Pact? It doesn't kill through Mom, but it does only cost 1 under Thalia which is pretty awesome.

Also, what are other people using for their Wish-able sweeper? I am still on Pyroclasm, mainly because it is the most mana efficient answer. Infest kills through Mom, is flexible like Pyro against creature decks, and is black which is much easier for the deck to generate. Virtue's Ruin kills through mom and equipment, but is dead against non-White creature decks where you may need a sweeper. Both Infest and Virtue's Ruin cost seven underneath a Thalia which is a ton of mana to generate. Pyroclasm is red which strains the manabase if you want to cast BW and Pyro in the same turn. I guess every solution gives up something somewhere.

I noticed that some lists were rocking a singleton Reverent Silence out of the board for Miracles in addition to some Xantid Swarms. Many lists were supporting this with a single Bayou/Tropical Island main. Having a Wishable answer to Counterbalance seems pretty good, but I don't know if it is worth the damage to the manabase for UBr lists. Maybe Abrupt Decay makes that plan obsolete but I still don't know if 3 color lists can really support another splash. Has anyone done any testing with this?

emidln

10-18-2012, 11:25 AM

Tendrils of Agony is a business spell in lists with Snapcaster Mages, Gitaxian Probes, and Cabal Therapies. I win pretty much every game where I naturally draw Tendrils because casting it for lethal is so easy, even vs aggro.

MTG Junkie

10-18-2012, 05:15 PM

This is the 60 iv been playing for a wile now. Plan on playing it this weekend but I don't know I want the board to be. I haven't played competitively In 6 weeks.

3 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
3 Gitaxion Probe
4 Infernal Tutor
3 Burning Wish
4 Ponder
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Past in Flames
4 Brainstorm
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
1 Ad Nauseam
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Bloodstaind Mire
2 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
1 Island
1 Swamp

I'm thinking somewhere along the lines of.
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Pyroclasm
1 Grim Tutor(now a owner :) )
1 Empty of the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 I'll-Gotten Gains
2 Karakis
2 Grafediggers Cage
2 Echoing Thruth
3 Dread of Night

Not so sure on the Dread of Nights though.
I could work in Abrupt Decays but I haven't had time to test with them though.

Tammit67

10-19-2012, 12:33 AM

I too am going to a tournament this weekend. Maybe see you there if you are heading towards the PA area.

1 Cabal Therapy
1 Pyroclasm
1 Grim Tutor(now a owner :) )
1 Empty of the Warrens
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 I'll-Gotten Gains
2 Karakis
2 Grafediggers Cage
2 Echoing Thruth
3 Dread of Night Not a fan of only 3 dread of nights (would like to see four) and running cage as the GY hate seems less optimal than simply surgical or extirpate. If it has been working for you though, more power to you.

In regards to ANT, I've been using this for sideboard:

1 Tendrils of agony
1 Grim tutor
1 Cabal therapy
1 Virtue's ruin
1 Inquisition of Kozelik
4 Dread of Night
1 Past in Flames
1 Empty the warrens
1 Tropical island
3 Abrupt Decay

I want to cut the Past for IGG and the empty for either another discard or an out to Leyline of Sanctity(like wipe away), but most of this board I haven't personally tinkered with in a while. Sound reasonable?

Koby

10-19-2012, 02:02 AM

I forgot to mention that Chain of Vapor is still insane for this deck. I almost want to run a second in the board or a maindeck copy.

Tammit67

10-19-2012, 02:15 AM

I forgot to mention that Chain of Vapor is still insane for this deck. I almost want to run a second in the board or a maindeck copy.

What, if anything, would you change from my above sideboard to fit it in? I had cut it since I'll expect more stoneblade and rug than most other archtypes, although a good bounce spell would be the 16th card.

pocari79

10-19-2012, 09:28 AM

Went to a small local tournament on Wed to test the deck out again. Went 0-3 and that was something I haven't experienced for quite a while. Lost to U/R Delver, Bant Enchantress and Deadguy. Game 3 against U/R Delver was pretty depressing, he only had a lavamancer for pressure and I had made him discard snapcaster, daze and spell pierce only to have him topdeck his miser's mindbreak trap while my hand was tutor, petal, ritual and LED. Was never able to find another discard spell and at the end, he found force + blue card to go along with the trap so I wasn't able to do anything. Perhaps I shouldn't have forced him to discard the daze as that could be played around with more ease and help up the discard spell until the combo turn.

Game 1 against enchantress was equally depressing. I stripped his hand in the first three turns and then he manages to topdeck Enchantress's Presence, Solitary Confinement, Mirri's Guile and Rest in Peace in that order and was able to cast them in each turn. I had a hand where I could kill after the turn he played confinement but oh well. Game 3 was even worse. I kept a hand of a couple of discard spells and actually had a combination of rituals and tutor only to have him play turn 0 Leyline of Sanctity to blank all of my discard and tendrils. So I think to myself, I'll have to kill eith Empty the Warrens, no problem. Then he plays turn 2 Rest in Peace and I'm like ugh, ok this EtW will be kind of small. Then he goes turn 3 Energy Field and I no longer have a way of winning. I
guess I could have a copy of Reverent Silence in the board for these weird matchups.

Game 1 against Deadguy, he took my tutor and cabal ritual with Tidehollow Scullers and made me discard another ritual. On my last turn I needed to peel a Burning Wish to win, I manage to topdeck a Probe into Burning Wish and then manage to play all my rituals, wish for Pyroclasm, cast Pyroclasm to get back my ritual and tutor, then tutor for Past in Flames, cast rituals again and tutor for tendrils. First time I ever used the Pyroclasm from the sideboard and it felt great. Game 2 he played an early Tormod's Crypt which I thought I could play around fairly easily but it seemed way harder than it should have? Anyways, I was thinking about playing EtW on my next turn when he topdecks an Ethersworn Canonist and I just die to lethal damage next turn. Game 3, I make him discard a Runed Halo(!!!), leaving him a Inquistion, two Tidehollows, a Hymn, a Wasteland and a Swamp. I then make him discard a Hymn the next turn and then his following turns he goes, Tidehollow, Hymn, Tidehollow, Stoneforge, Bob, Batterskull. I guess that's his god hand and there's really nothing much I can do there? I think I also sideboarded wrong in this matchup since I brought in two inquisitions and a duress and kept my two maindeck duresses as well where I should have boarded out my two duresses and replaced it with the two inquisitions as the majority of his hate are either hate bears or cards <= 3cc.

I then played some practice matches against U/W Miracles with countertop in the main. I thought counterbalance without top would be relatively easy to play against but man, the miracles deck has a lot of zeros, ones and twos and he just kept owning me with blind flips. Post board it got a bit better with the three extra discard spells as it got easier to take Counterbalance or Top from his
hand on turns one and two. I think we played around 8 games overall and we went around 50/50 split? It's definately not crazy bad as I expected unless they get turn 2 countertop assembled.

About sideboarding, has anyone else been displeased with siding out Gitaxian Probes? I'm not playing the singleton Chrome Mox in the main so all night long I was boarding out three Probes and that just felt really wrong. In my sideboard games, I just felt like I had a hard time filtering through the deck even though I still had 4 Ponders, 4 Brainstorm and a Probe left. Plus when I draw multiple Burning Wishes in post board games, it seems like there's nothing to get if you need to develop your hand. I feel like I might want to side out a Probe, a Cabal Ritual and an Infernal Tutor instead.

I'm also feeling underwhelmed with Empty the Warrens. It seems like every deck has some sort of hate against tokens and giving them 2-3 turns to find an answer is just bad. Sometimes I wish that I had more answer cards in the sideboard like a Deathmark or a Massacre so the Wishes get more useful.

emidln

10-19-2012, 10:08 AM

heathen

10-19-2012, 11:25 AM

Game 3 against U/R Delver was pretty depressing, he only had a lavamancer for pressure and I had made him discard snapcaster, daze and spell pierce only to have him topdeck his miser's mindbreak trap while my hand was tutor, petal, ritual and LED.

Could you have played around Mindbreak Trap by playing Petal and LED, passing the turn, then next turn get Ad Naus and draw enough cards to find discard? With only Lavamancer for pressure maybe you had enough life to go for an Ad Naus...?

Edit: I didn't mean to re-state what had already been asked. I didn't see the post above mine. Sorry.

alderon666

10-19-2012, 11:42 AM

You could have also saved a discard spell for when you where closer to going off, even the turn you were going off. Especially after you had seen he didn't have a hardcounter in hand with the first discard. The deck can play around taxing counter somewhat well, you just need some lands + Dark Ritual or Past in Flames + LEDs.

Shimi

10-19-2012, 12:44 PM

heathen

10-19-2012, 01:13 PM

wasteland + stifle is somehow common and can cripple our 14 lands manabase.

Stifle is one thing, but Wasteland should never be a problem. Fetch basics. Between basic Island, basic Swamp, and the artifact mana, you should almost never get blown out by Wasteland with this deck.

alderon666

10-19-2012, 01:18 PM

Hi Guys, I was testing with UBr ANT ( GP Ghent/Timo List) and finf it to be a "little too hard" to beat the Canadian Matchup when they have MD Stifles + Flusterstorm + Envelop pós-SB.Also Cabal Ritual g
ot stuck in my hand more times that I would liked since wasteland + stifle is somehow common and can cripple our 14 lands manabase. I'm thinking about cutting the Cages(yes, they are reallt good against Reanimator and Dredge) but I would like to put more hate against Canadian and maybe Miracles, what do you guys think about it?

Thx.

@Alderon666: 2 weeks ago,I could won with zero mana and zero cards in hand against a CB on 2cc because I just cast PiF , played 2 probes, drawing a BlackLotus and casting all my stuff again.Multiples LEDs + PiF are really good to play around hardcounters AND taxes counters.

Maybe Defense Grid? Envelop and Flusterstorm don't hit it and it shuts down a bunch of random stuff like Surgical or Snapcaster.

It also must be great when they Show and Tell a Griselbrand and you put a Defense Grid. All those cards and no mana to cast them...

PS: But on a second note, Defense Grid might be bad. It just doesn't play well with discard if they have mana up, if you have Defense Grid out and play a Duress to see 2x Counterspells... your discard + Defense Grid just did absolutely nothing. On the other hand, if the Duress was a Chant, you would have locked them out.

Tammit67

10-19-2012, 01:46 PM

PS: But on a second note, Defense Grid might be bad. It just doesn't play well with discard if they have mana up, if you have Defense Grid out and play a Duress to see 2x Counterspells... your discard + Defense Grid just did absolutely nothing. On the other hand, if the Duress was a Chant, you would have locked them out.

I'd rather just have more discard in the board, as it handles RUG, Stoneblade, Miracles, Show and Tell, the Mirror and random things.

pocari79

10-19-2012, 01:46 PM

@emidln and Alderon666
Thanks for the reponses and the different lines of play! Gives me other options to think about next time I play.

@heathen
If I play petal + LED then next turn cast ritual, tutor, get ad nauseum and cast it, it would be the third spell and he could trap that. I also didn't have enough mana to hardcast ad nauseum without using LED mana anyways.

Shimi

10-19-2012, 10:28 PM

Stifle is one thing, but Wasteland should never be a problem. Fetch basics. Between basic Island, basic Swamp, and the artifact mana, you should almost never get blown out by Wasteland with this deck.

Because you never got 2-land hands like : U. Sea , Fetchland + 5non-cantrip cards. The decks is just more resilient against but it is far from immune to wasteland.

Sloshthedark

10-20-2012, 01:17 PM

I'm ok with fetching duals into wastelands and strongly dislike 2 Islands or even 2/2, just fetch Sea unless basics are really necessary

btw just won ~40 people tournament, 7 rounds, standings, with this "random" pile...

1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress

4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder

4 Infernal Tutor
1 Grim Tutor
1 Burning Wish
1 Snapcaster Mage

1 Ad Nauseam
2 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony

SB: 2 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Pyroclasm
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Extirpate
SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 2 Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 Pernicious Deed
SB: 3 Dark Confidant
SB: 1 Tropical Island
SB: 1 Karakas

2-0 UR Helm-Top combo (Flusterstorm+CB MD), 2-0 Deadguy Ale (haven't seen Thalia), 2-1 Canadian Threshold, 2-1 Canadian Threshold (Envelop), 1-2 GW Maverick, 2-0 Junk with Thalia, 2-0 Deadguy Ale (Thalia)

slaydo

10-20-2012, 03:19 PM

Sloshthedark

10-20-2012, 05:04 PM

@sloshthedark, intresting choices you made. why double past in flames and the singleton snapcaster mage, grim tutor and burning wish? I am deciding which version I will take to a tournament next week and I can't decide.

2 PiF - I'd call it a signature tech, G1 it is insane I always like 1 in my hand and just makes sure I win G1 with Thresh, actually is somehow not that bad in Ad Nauseam in some scenarios, also good to note regular shop guys tend to be storm paranoid... I run it since February in all my builds and never look back...

the rest, that's a bit complicated... I experimented a lot in last month or two, used to play 2 Snapcaster +Grim, 2xDeed 2xEE SB recently .. with release of Abrupt decay the situation is unclear to me... because AD is not something I'm convinced I want vs. Maverick
Snapcaster is poor in Ad Nauseam and makes the deck slower, but shines vs. control +G2 and 2-4 dmg are often very relevant .. but also felt like I want 2 BW as an answer for Thalia or a MD answer (CoV/Karakas)... honestly I thought the Grim should be BW before the tournament (with Grim Tutor +2x 2CC in BW places I feel I have crossed the line where 2xPiF are logically sustainable and devalues the tech), but with 2-3 BW I'd need a "proper" wishboard (basicaly +Toa & IT) which I don't have space for (keeping splash G), I also wanted to keep speed of 5 black tutors, and kind of ended up like this... I can GrimT for BW at worst, double ToA and reach EtW G1 in case Ad Nauseam does not make sense (like land, petal, 2LED, Infernal Tutor)

actually I missed hardly on the meta call, it was mostly GWx and WBx midrange and storm all in 4+ copies, only 2 CB decks, so first tournament ever for me when dread of night would be a reasonable choice

so it's not something I can reasonably justify, basically I wanted to have fun and have more lines and versatility... G2 I board into Tendrils aggro (8-12 cards), it's not something I'd advise or is right to play, but it's fun and works for me, +Karakas was great and I'd probably want a second Extirpate

in vacuum I'd go for most consistent list 3IT, GT, 3BW list with double PiF, IT side (or just 4IT/3BW if you don't have GT) and avoid bad cards like Dread of night or grafdiggers cage in multiple copies

egosum

10-21-2012, 02:15 PM

I top 8-ed las saturdday in a 131 people tournament with the list I posted in the page 208 (number 4143).

I only changed the sideboard a bit for this one:

SIDEBOARD 15

2x Tormod's Crypt
2x Grafdigger's Cage
4x Xantid Swarm
3x Abrupt Decay
3x Chain of Vapor
1x Ill-Gotten Gains

The list was excellent. I won't change a single card. Only I may give a try to the following changes in the sideboard, just to see if karakas is worth the slots:

-1x Chain of Vapor
-2x Grafdigger's CAge

+1x Tormd's Crypt
+2x Karakas.

I managed to win all the swiss games 2-0, but the only one I lost to G/W (1-2) and an intentional draw. I lost in top 8 to RUG tempo (1-2) my opponent played very good but also accepted he had some insane top decks in the crucial moments.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

slaydo

10-21-2012, 04:05 PM

@egosum, Gratz on ur T8. Why 2x grim tutor over Bwish? If I dont have access to the 2nd grim tutor, what would you take in it's stead?

egosum

10-21-2012, 04:43 PM

Thanks. Sadly there is no real substitute for Grim Tutor, the closest card is Personal Tutor for this deck, but is not even near to Grim Tutor.

Grim Tutor main advantages is being on color (i.e. black, so can be cast off rituals) and not card disadvantage. For this matter it is, along with Infernal tutor, they are unique in their role. It is also important that they are the recurrable, which is important for cards like PiF or IGG. This last point makes it strictly stronger than BW (which main flaw is that it cannot fetch a REAL storm engine).

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

Tammit67

10-22-2012, 12:41 AM

Came in second at a 27 man event in Philadelphia today.

Sideboard:
1 Cabal therapy
1 Inquisition of Kozelik
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill gotten gains
1 Grim Tutor
1 Viture's ruin
4 Dread of night
1 Chain of vapor
3 Abrupt decay
1 Tropical Island

Rd 1 loss to Death and Taxes 1-2 (top 8's)
Rd 2 Bye
Rd 3 Win over Zombie Bombardment 2-0
Rd 4 Win over GBr Nic Fit 2-0
Rd 5 ID

Top 8: 2 Esperblade, 2 RUG, 1 Maverick, 1 Death and Taxes, 1 Belcher, and me with AnT

Top 8 Win over Esper Stoneblade 2-0. Had to Brainstorm into past in flames into Probe/brainstorm into tutors. Felt great.
Top 4 split, my opponent doesn't want the byes associated with the Tournament Series and drops.
Finals loss to Esper stoneblade 1-2. Got double inquisitioned, double extracted game two and spell pierce into clique/karakas game three. 3 turns running I ripped Infernal Tutor off the top and got it sent to the bottom.

Out of the 27 players, only 9 were running force of will. The field was incredibly soft to combo. Grim tutor won me two games for being itself, IGG was irrelevant, the added discard was awesome against my esper opponents, I missed empty the warrens twice. Abrupts never came in, chain let me showboat once, and the dread of nights were awkward. I think I jsut like virtue's ruin better, but perhaps I am biased after getting Tidehollow sculler'd out of round 1.

Umezete

10-22-2012, 02:55 AM

I just picked up this deck and am a complete novice with storm but I took this to a local legacy win-a-box tournament and played without any real testing the red ghent list.

Which was stupid and I played badly but I did make top 4 which drew, but the reason why I am posting is to chime in on the grim tutor question.

I did not own grim tutor and played perish instead, my only game loss (just a game not a match) was to whiffing a storm with 1r 7b and a burning wish in hand but storm count off by 1 for tendrils from sb, if I had grim tutor I would have won.

The deck NEEDs 1 tutor from the sb, and grim is the best by far. At least that is my beginner's opinion on the matter.

And yes I'm crazy, I was calling this Spanish inquisition the whole tournament and made some mistakes that made a die hard storm player facepalm.

Tammit67

10-22-2012, 02:51 PM

Which was stupid and I played badly but I did make top 4 which drew, but the reason why I am posting is to chime in on the grim tutor question.

I did not own grim tutor and played perish instead, my only game loss (just a game not a match) was to whiffing a storm with 1r 7b and a burning wish in hand but storm count off by 1 for tendrils from sb, if I had grim tutor I would have won.

The deck NEEDs 1 tutor from the sb, and grim is the best by far. At least that is my beginner's opinion on the matter.

Grim tutor is a luxury. if you can afford it, the versions with it are better.

Why perish? Did you mean virtue's ruin?

Umezete

10-22-2012, 03:10 PM

Grim tutor is a luxury. if you can afford it, the versions with it are better.

Why perish? Did you mean virtue's ruin?

no it was perish, it should have been nature's ruin but I don't own those and actually just threw in perish because it was a 3cc black card filler making the sb 15 cards.

TBH it should have been diabolic tutor or even beseech the queen, ANY tutor would've been better.

heathen

10-22-2012, 03:38 PM

my only game loss (just a game not a match) was to whiffing a storm with 1r 7b and a burning wish in hand but storm count off by 1 for tendrils from sb, if I had grim tutor I would have won.

If you have 1R and 7B, then cast Burning Wish, you'll be left with 6B. In that instance, what good would Grim Tutor have done for you? After you Grim Tutor you're left with 3B. Did you mean that you had 1R and 7B after casting Burning Wish?

slaydo

10-22-2012, 04:55 PM

I was refering to the fact that some1 was playing 2. I own 1 and I have put it in my wishboard. It´s vital to have in a wishboard. I am going to take the GP Gent list with the addition of ADx3 side over 3 cages and MD 1x tropical island over 1x chrome mox.

ponder

10-22-2012, 05:35 PM

I played ANT Sunday at scg indy and ended up 5-3 losing to bug-because i punted zombies-outrageous discard and a large sack of luck and stoneblade-mulled to 5 in game 3
Decks i beat NicFit-easy wins past in flames/iggy both games ub control(aj sacher)-past in flames/pastinflames again rug-past in flames/ad nauseam belcher-duress game 1/echoing truth goblins game 2 u/w countertop-past in flames loop/abrupt decay=win
The list
4 misty rainforest
4 polluted delta
1 bloodstained mire
2 underground sea
1 volcanic island
1 tropical island
1 bayou
1 island
1 swamp
4 dark ritual
4 cabal ritual
4 ponder
4 brainstorm
4 gitaxin probe
4 duress
3 cabal therapy
4 infernal tutor
2 grim tutor
1 ad nauseam
1 past in flames
1 tendrils of agony
4 lions eye dialmond
4 lotus petal
sb
4 dread of night
3 abrupt decay
3 dark confidant
1 ill-gotten gains
1 empty the warrens
1 ad nauseam
1 echoing truth
1 chain of vapor
The list was very consistent. I feel like there is one to many land so I'm going to begin testing 1 preordain in the place of the tropical island, chrome mox may also be a suitable replacement. The bobs were subpar, the abrupt decays were awesome, i never used empty so the trop will take its place in the board for the rug matchup. I finished 44th and plan on playing a similar deck in st louis in two weeks. If you have any questions feel free to comment.

Umezete

10-22-2012, 05:38 PM

If you have 1R and 7B, then cast Burning Wish, you'll be left with 6B. In that instance, what good would Grim Tutor have done for you? After you Grim Tutor you're left with 3B. Did you mean that you had 1R and 7B after casting Burning Wish?

no I meant 8b but was thinking the shorthand for 7 and a b instead of 7b when I wrote it for some reason. I had enough for wish into grim into tendrils for the win but not enough storm count for wish into tendrils to kill him. I also had no way to iggyloop.

@ slaydo: I was running pyroclasm in sb for a wish sweeper, I also have grafdigger's cage in the sb but found them to be pretty useless so I'd probably try the abrubt decays as well because countertop was the only thing that worried me so far.

Koby

10-22-2012, 05:44 PM

The list was very consistent. I feel like there is one to many land so I'm going to begin testing 1 preordain in the place of the tropical island, chrome mox may also be a suitable replacement. The bobs were subpar, the abrupt decays were awesome, i never used empty so the trop will take its place in the board for the rug matchup. I finished 44th and plan on playing a similar deck in st louis in two weeks. If you have any questions feel free to comment.

Do you feel that cutting one of the lands (fetchland likely) for the 4th Cabal Therapy would improve or worsen your run?
How relevant was Dread of Night against the field you expected? Did you even get paired against Maverick/white hate-bears? (it doesn't looks like it)

Adding the extra Tropical in the SB seems like a great idea against RUG's mana denial.

ponder

10-22-2012, 08:04 PM

@koby
The 4th therapy is unnecessary between probes ponders and brainstorms I saw 2 discard a game which is enough. That was actually the reason it's staying in the board. Either way you can't cut any fetches shuffle is too important. In the 3 hours of testing so far preordain has been great.

alderon666

10-23-2012, 05:31 PM

no I meant 8b but was thinking the shorthand for 7 and a b instead of 7b when I wrote it for some reason. I had enough for wish into grim into tendrils for the win but not enough storm count for wish into tendrils to kill him. I also had no way to iggyloop.

@ slaydo: I was running pyroclasm in sb for a wish sweeper, I also have grafdigger's cage in the sb but found them to be pretty useless so I'd probably try the abrubt decays as well because countertop was the only thing that worried me so far.

I was thinking of running Reforge the Soul on the sideboard. It does the same as Diminishing Returns for one extra mana, but it allows you to keep you graveyard. That enables both Cabal Ritual and Past in Flames. Also, a minor point is that it doesn't shuffle you fetchlands in your deck before you draw 7, therefore increasing the chance for drawing gas. The RR cost is kinda steep, but so is UU. The deck is not prepared at all to win with Reforge the Soul, but sometimes it can be a last ditch effort when your hand has mana + Burning Wish and Past in Flames/IGG/Grim Tutor/Empty the Warrens is not an option.

egosum

10-24-2012, 03:50 AM

bennotsi

10-24-2012, 09:10 AM

I was thinking of running Reforge the Soul on the sideboard. It does the same as Diminishing Returns for one extra mana, but it allows you to keep you graveyard. That enables both Cabal Ritual and Past in Flames. Also, a minor point is that it doesn't shuffle you fetchlands in your deck before you draw 7, therefore increasing the chance for drawing gas. The RR cost is kinda steep, but so is UU. The deck is not prepared at all to win with Reforge the Soul, but sometimes it can be a last ditch effort when your hand has mana + Burning Wish and Past in Flames/IGG/Grim Tutor/Empty the Warrens is not an option.

I like your arguments alderon666, it really sounds worth trying. I've tested Reforge the Soul in Belcher before and it was actually quite nice, except against blue decks, but that's a problem inherent to Belcher anyway. I do think that in order for Reforge the Soul to work in ANT you should consider playing some Silence/Chant or Xantid Swarm.

Dia_Bot

10-24-2012, 09:22 AM

for those who know spanish here you have a little article/report with the list. and sidboarding guide, I played las Saturady.

http://manainfinito.com/articulos/mareas-cambiantes-4c-ad-nauseam-por-i-aki-puigdollers

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

Thanks for the report Egosum, I hope my basic knowledge of spanish will be enough to decipher the text. :smile:

ThomasDowd

10-24-2012, 02:45 PM

Thanks for the report Egosum, I hope my basic knowledge of spanish will be enough to decipher the text. :smile:

Google translate(built into chrome) is an amazing tool, it is not accurate but it gets the job done.

I should probably read it in spanish though to brush up on it.

alderon666

10-24-2012, 03:31 PM

I like your arguments alderon666, it really sounds worth trying. I've tested Reforge the Soul in Belcher before and it was actually quite nice, except against blue decks, but that's a problem inherent to Belcher anyway. I do think that in order for Reforge the Soul to work in ANT you should consider playing some Silence/Chant or Xantid Swarm.

The point is not optimizing the deck for it. The question is if it's worth the sideboard slot.

You can argue that there's most of the time a way to avoid the situation of: all mana in hand + Burning Wish, nothing relevant on the graveyard, not enough life/mana for Grim -> Ad Nauseam/PiF, tokens not viable and IGG not an option AND opponent not playing blue, especially not Flusterstorm. That's the only case where the Reforge is good, because on the other scenarios the cards mentioned above give you a better chance of winning.

The problem is that I really dislike the sideboard introduced in ANT on GP Ghent. With 4 Dread of Night and 3 Cages, you have little space for Wish targets. More than once during playtesting/goldfishing I felt that BW was bad as a setup spell and useless as a business spell. And that, for me, is a really big problem! I think that you should have a decent winning % with a hand of BW + mana, but that sometimes is just not enough. TES for example had a pretty good winning % on casting Diminishing Returns with BR on the mana pool. I feel that the current ANT lists is missing that.

thefringthing

10-24-2012, 03:41 PM

alderon666

10-24-2012, 03:56 PM

Koby

10-24-2012, 04:03 PM

Reanimator is actually a pretty hard matchup.

Karakas is mighty powerful against Reanimator. It's also uncounterable against them, and can be protected from discard. I had very positive experience with running 3 in the sideboard at the GP side events.

Shimi

10-25-2012, 12:48 AM

I wouldn't even consider actually playing 3 Cages or whatever it is that guy had. He's a Dredge guy, so I think he was just over-preparing for that deck. If you're having trouble beating Grave Trolls with Dark Rituals you're doing something wrong.

I didn't test the deck enought to see if cages are good enought , but I once played it against NicFit and opened with probe seeing ( 2x Zenith, terapy , finks , veteran , 1 land, MB Trap) than played cage for the lolz.I know it is not relevant but would like to add this experience because I never thought about SB it against Nic-Fit until I face one.

Umezete

10-25-2012, 06:05 AM

Karakas is mighty powerful against Reanimator. It's also uncounterable against them, and can be protected from discard. I had very positive experience with running 3 in the sideboard at the GP side events.

That's same problem though, dread of night+ 3 reananimator hate = only 8 slots for wishboard.

Waikiki

10-25-2012, 06:07 AM

only 8? thats alot imo

Namida

10-25-2012, 07:40 AM

That's same problem though, dread of night+ 3 reananimator hate = only 8 slots for wishboard.

...What are you putting in your wishboard if you're using 8 spots?

Umezete

10-25-2012, 10:27 AM

...What are you putting in your wishboard if you're using 8 spots?

Beats me, I mentioned that because alderon666 was lamenting the 7 spots were being eaten up and can't be a wishboard.

I'm in pretty borning netdeckmode until I play the deck more, I'm running 4 dread, 3 cage, 1 empty the warrens (this seems bad in almost every scenario nowadays, probably cut), 1 duress, 2 Inquisition, 1 Ill gotten gains, 1 Tendrils, and 1 pyroclasm.

I also have a perish in the sb but its supposed to be grim tutor, I should be getting one in a few weeks.

I'm okay with that sb so far except I kinda want a sb past in flames, I've had a couple of times where wishing for past in flames would have been good for me.

Rekk

10-25-2012, 11:17 AM

Beats me, I mentioned that because alderon666 was lamenting the 7 spots were being eaten up and can't be a wishboard.

I'm in pretty borning netdeckmode until I play the deck more, I'm running 4 dread, 3 cage, 1 empty the warrens (this seems bad in almost every scenario nowadays, probably cut), 1 duress, 2 Inquisition, 1 Ill gotten gains, 1 Tendrils, and 1 pyroclasm.

I also have a perish in the sb but its supposed to be grim tutor, I should be getting one in a few weeks.

I'm okay with that sb so far except I kinda want a sb past in flames, I've had a couple of times where wishing for past in flames would have been good for me.

cut the perish for the past in flames
And i would play a vitures ruin instead of the pyroclasm

Koby

10-25-2012, 02:38 PM

That's same problem though, dread of night+ 3 reananimator hate = only 8 slots for wishboard.

I don't run Burning Wish at all. After running emidln's version in some live matches, I wanted more tutor action, so I thought to add them back in. Then I saw Inaki's version with 2 Grim Tutor, and that's a simple transition. The Abrupt Decay/Karakas plan seems too good to pass up on, and instead of boarding in more land, fixing the maindeck mana mix seems like a better idea.

alderon666

10-25-2012, 03:58 PM

You don't have 8 slots left for the wishboard. You have to run some discard and some bounce (you don't want to scoop to resolved a Thorn of Amethyst do you?). You also need more hatebear hate because one Dread of Night don't kill neither Canonist nor Gaddock.

But I have to admit I enter the "danger of cool things" zone when it comes to wishboards. I actually considered running a Rite of Flame so that BW could turn into more mana. But red mana is so bad in this version of this deck, not worth the slot.

I actually like Grim Tutor a lot, BW is all kinds of bad in this deck. But I'm not buying one of those things, let alone two. Legacy too expensive, want to play Modern.
/rant

heathen

10-25-2012, 05:11 PM

Is there a good sorcery bounce spell that could be in the board to Wish for?

MTG Junkie

10-25-2012, 06:05 PM

Eye to Nowhere,its 2 BU return target permanent to its owner's hand.
Never tested it. If you do let us know how it goes.

ThomasDowd

10-25-2012, 06:11 PM

Eye to Nowhere,its 2 BU return target permanent to its owner's hand.
Never tested it. If you do let us know how it goes.

This was gone over years ago, it is too slow and too much mana it is an extra UU on the combo turn that you usually cannot afford, also you need to set it up a turn ahead of time so they see it coming.

Namida

10-25-2012, 08:23 PM

There is also Silent Departure if all you need is an Unsummon. But sorcery speed bounce is awful. You can't EOT it so it eats into your mana on your combo turn, and you have to show your opponent that you have it when you Wish for it, so you give your opponent time to react to the information.

xfxf

10-26-2012, 04:00 AM

I have two questions. How does the UB version (with Grim Tutors and without Burning Wishes) deal with hatebears, are Abrupt Decays from the sb enough for this? And how does ANT deal with chalice on 0 or 1 on early turns?

egosum

10-26-2012, 07:23 AM

Obv. in first game it just can't. If you feel like for your given metagame it is needed just change one Chain of Vapor from the side for a Duress and then you have a very little hope (some people feel more comfortable by doing that, I just prefer to resolve the first game fast having an straightforward list since the chances of finding a deck with annoying bear are not super high, and even if you are matched against, let's say, G/W you also have chances to win before the bear hits the table, for 2 reasons either speed or just discard).

Chains and Decays are super OK, but it definitely depends on the meta. If you are going to face many Dragon stumpy/Aggro Loam/MUD, and nasty stuff like that just change the sideboard, adapt it with few Hurkyl's Recall/Rebuild/Engineered explosives/Echoing truth/..., But for the current meta a chalice @ 1 only is played in turn 2 (not many "sol land" decks, nor Mox diamoned decks, and the decks with Mox Diamond abuse of 1CC spells so they won't play chalice normally), this means that you have a 1/2 turn window to discard that chalice that will be played @1. A chalice of zero is not really a problem since you have 6 efficient answers post board. and obv. chalice @ is not a problem neither (because you just have the 6 same efficient answers, remember Decay can't be countered).

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

aaronm678

10-26-2012, 07:40 AM

I have two questions. How does the UB version (with Grim Tutors and without Burning Wishes) deal with hatebears, are Abrupt Decays from the sb enough for this?

Preboard, the plan against hatebears is to outrace them, which means ~40% win preboard against maverick.

Post board...most lists I've seen have 3-4 abrupt decay, 2-3 bounce (karakas or chain), 2-3 sweepers (pyroclasm, virtues ruin, or dread of night), and 3-4 thoughtseize. If you were counting, thats almost the entire sideboard you can bring in if you like.

And how does ANT deal with chalice on 0 or 1 on early turns?

Chalice on 0 you should get excited that your opponent is bad...it's not irrelevant, but certainly not hard to play through. Chalice on 1 preboard is annoying - I start firing off all my 1 drops to get threshold on cabal ritual, but it's tough to win without cantrips. Post board, abrupt decay does the trick.

cuthbertthecat

10-28-2012, 05:37 AM

I've been playing Emidln's latest list on MTGO, with the exception of the Virtue's Ruins from the sideboard because they don't exist on MTGO. My sideboard has 4 Dread of Night over the 3 Ruins and a Karakas, I'm not sure this is right but less than 4 Dread of Night seems sub-optimal. The deck is insane, and I almost feel like a second Past in Flames in the main would be better than the Ad Nauseam. The Nauseam could be in the board for the specific matchups where it's good, but I've found that a naturally drawn Past and Flames is much better against decks like RUG that put on pressure and have disruption. A turn 5 ad nauseam from 11 is neat and all, but it usually just doesn't get there. I understand that Ad Nauseam is a business spell on it's own, but a value past in flames for a few cantrips isn't even the worst, it can just put you in a position to flash it back next turn and win with your improved hand.

Sloshthedark

10-28-2012, 05:50 AM

Dark Ritual

10-28-2012, 01:23 PM

1, Cannonist is 2/2 = Dread of night is crap
2, 2 PiF - I said that all the time ;) ... that need (+AdN) led me from 2 grim into BW build
3, decent graveyard (lacking tutors or mana) with Ponder, Probe, Brainstorm is usually enough to get there blind (better chances that AdN from 11)

We all know how bad ad nauseam is in this deck with 4 petals and no chrome moxen. Doesn't help that this deck is slower than TES so when we fire off ad nauseam we're typically at 13 life or less, which isn't a sure kill in this deck by any means. Even at 20 life the card isn't an auto win because of the random crap we can flip. I don't like ad nauseam that much but it's a necessary evil in my eyes because randomly winning on turn 1 by raw drawing the ad nauseam + double DRit can be necessary. Or when the opponent goes tormod's crypt. I feel like 1 PiF is enough, I occasionally go for the PiF -> tons of cantrips line of play to try to find a business spell but I don't do so lightly as not winning after resolving PiF and emptying your graveyard of instants/sorceries is pretty bad unless you manage to set up the kill for the next turn. I only really do this line when I'm dead on board and have no other options because ad nauseam from 2 life is the neat way of conceding.

Played Emidln's maindeck almost card for card yesterday at a local and went 2-1 because my opponent lucksacked out in the last round. I didn't change the manabase from before abrupt decay was in the deck, it wasn't relevant today but I'm definitely changing the manabase before I play the deck again. Not sure what his SB looks like currently but mine was 4 Abrupt decay, 1 trop, 1 bayou, 3 karakas, 2 chain of vapor, 3 virtue's ruin, 1 tendrils of agony. Fourth round didn't happen because of some problems with the tournament software or something odd. I beat reanimator 2-0, lands 2-0 with a turn 1 kill in game 1 and game 2 I drew a green source/petal just in time because I got wastelocked out of the game. Round 3 against merfolk I probed him when he was tapped out with a cursecatcher and silvergill in play. He had a pierce in hand but he was tapped out. I could easily play around the cursecatcher with my double cabal rit hand and 3 lands in play as well as a pair of dark rit's with infernal tutor -> PiF winning the game with ease. Game 2 I was a mana short on the combo turn because my opponent got the merfolk aggro nut draw so he effectively wasted one of my lands due to myself being at 2 life with 2 fetchlands in play. Game 3 I tore his hand to shreds with therapy when he was land hosed, I eventually draw infernal tutor and he topdecked a force. No big deal because he had no pressure. When I go all in on the next tutor he was lucky enough to have drawn a second force when his only card in hand the turn before was a lord of atlantis. Pretty sick topdecks I have to say. Round 1 against reanimator was a good match. Game 1 I lead off with probe on the play and see a hand of double brainstorm, entomb, reanimate, sea, swamp. I therapy away the double brainstorms to make it safe to go off next turn barring him drawing a brainstorm into force + blue card off of a topdecked brainstorm, which is quite unlikely seeing as how he has 2 brainstorms left in a deck of 53 cards. For game 2 I bring in 3 karakas and 2 chain of vapor. He goes sea, careful study dumping SnT and griselbrand. I draw my card (a karakas) and probe before laying a land. He dazes and I just think to myself why I didn't play a land first, although I suspect that my opponent was trying to landhose me thinking I didn't have a land in hand when I had 2 I just forgot to play one first. I blind therapy, name force of will. He has ponder, reanimate, and stifle (?) along with 3 lands. I lay down petal and LED before passing. He reanimates griselbrand on his turn going to 12. I lay my karakas down and immediately activate it to play around the stifle in his hand. He activates griselbrand in response, and I punt by not flashing in snapcaster in response forgetting that he's at 5 life and I can literally beat him to death with a 2/1. Either way he draws 7 cards. I play a cantrip and pass or something. He goes land go. I go land, cantrip, snapcaster. He forces it pitching stifle. He's also cracked one fetchland so he's at 3 life at this point. He entombs platinum emperion. Luckily I have a chain of vapor in hand. He has to cast exhume on his turn as that is his only reanimation spell. So I get to live the dream and put snapcaster into play with a therapy in the yard. I draw infernal tutor for my turn. He has just misty rainforest open and 3 cards in hand or something. Stifle doesn't hold a candle to tendrils even if he has one he has to go to 2 life to cast it so the lone tendrils would win the game. So I flashback therapy on him naming force of will/the only card that can stop me. He has one and some other irrelevant cards in hand so I win going CoV -> IT -> tendrils. Pretty great match in my eyes at least. Absolutely love karakas in the sideboard, the card is actually just obscene.

Chalice on zero is really hand dependant. Sometimes it the nuts. Sometimes you just kill them with all the dark rit's and cabal rit's. But I find chalice at 1 to be infinitely more annoying as most of the deck is composed of 1 drops namely cantrips. You can win through chalice on 1 but it typically involves drawing a lot of artifact mana and getting lucky with ad nauseam since PiF doesn't work so well with artifacts it turns out.

Against maverick preboard you hope they don't land a hatebear before you go off or hope to strip their hatebear with discard before it lands. Winning through thalia is theoretically possible but in practice it almost never happens as requiring an additional 10 mana on the combo turn is a lot of mana against a deck that can kill you quite fast with knight or just swarm you. Postboard when you bring in close to 14 cards the matchup is an autowin unless you draw quite poorly or the opponent draws incredibly hot.

You can also kill canonist with double dread of night. It isn't impossible to draw 2 dread of nights in a deck with 4 ponder and 4 brainstorm. You can also potentially infernal tutor for an additional copy of DoN, sure this line is quite slow but once 2 DoN's hit the table against maverick you should auto win as the only way they can interact with you is maybe graveyard hate or try to interact with you life total to mess up ad nauseam, although I almost always go for PiF against maverick especially if you're winning on turn 4 or later. Still have abrupt decay to answer canonist as well and if DoN hits they can't protect their hatebear from decay with mom fortunately for us. The postboard matchup against maverick is one of the easiest matchups we have the only decks that are easier are those that have zero ways of interacting with us.

cuthbertthecat

10-28-2012, 04:05 PM

Also, it would seem that canonist is near-unplayable currently, with the combo deck of choice being show and tell which doesn't really care about it. Especially on MTGO, there's a ton of show and tell and very little storm.

JamieW89

10-28-2012, 07:30 PM

Ran this today and was pretty satisfied with it. It's pretty much my GP Amsterdam deck minus white plus discard and a green sideboard. Never missed the Volc for PiF, not sure if I like Mox, sb was a bit random but okay. I ended up going 5-2 beating BW Blade, Elves, UB Tempo, RUG Delver & UW Miracles. I lost to BUG and the mirror (which is lame without white).

//Main Deck: 60
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Grim Tutor
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ad Nauseam

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Preordain

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress

4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
2 Island
1 Swamp

// Sideboard: 15
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Carpet of Flowers
2 Xantid Swarm
1 Tropical Island
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Dread of Night
1 Extirpate
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Karakas

pocari79

10-29-2012, 10:18 AM

Went to a tournament over the weekend. There were five rounds and I finished a disappointing 3-2. Played the following list:

4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
1 Swamp
1 Island
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Duress
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Infernal Tutor
2 Burning Wish
1 Grim Tutor
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ad Nauseum

4 Dread of Night
3 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Duress
1 Pyroclasm
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Reverent Silence
1 Tendrils of Agony

In the tournament I played against:
Round 1: U/W Stoneblade (2-1)
Round 2: W/R RIP Helm combo (0-2)
Round 3: MUD (0-2)
Round 4: Esper Stoneblade (2-0)
Round 5: Maverick (2-0)

It was fairly disappointing to face the RIP Helm combo since in game 1, I didn't have any discard spells but was able to see his hand via probe and he kept an opening hand of 5 lands, a Pithing Needle and a RIP. I couldn't kill before he dropped the RIP and my hand was full of Cabal Rituals and then he just topdecked painter and grindstone in the next two turns and killed me. Game two, he started off with two Leyline of Sanctities on turn zero and followed up with RIP on turn two. I was able to wish for Reverent Silence and I used the silence up too early since he had 4 lands in play and two cards in hand and I thought that it was weird how he passed without playing anything with 4 lands in play so I decided to cast the Reverent Silence. Next turn, he ends up playing his third Leyline and then the turn following that played another RIP. I then had to just play Empty the Warrens for 16 and then he topdecked painter and helm in two straight turns which was pretty frustrating.

Against MUD, I don't think the deck with this sideboard can win right? There's just not enough discard to keep them off chalices, lodestones and trinispheres and if one sphere effect hits, it's pretty much over.

It was the first time I played with Grim Tutor and it replaced the 3rd Burning Wish. Grim Tutor was extremely strong and won me the games where if it was a Burning Wish, I would have lost. I'm not sure if it's better in the sideboard or in the maindeck though.

Also, I've never hated casting Ad Nauseum more. I hardcast it once this tournament, flipped 20+ cards from 19 life and couldn't hit one lotus petal, LED or dark ritual. I had to end up passing the turn and couldn't win on the next turn either as I couldn't find the pieces I needed through Brainstorms and shuffle effects. There's just too much variance.

aaronm678

10-29-2012, 10:56 AM

Also, I've never hated casting Ad Nauseum more. I hardcast it once this tournament, flipped 20+ cards from 19 life and couldn't hit one lotus petal, LED or dark ritual. I had to end up passing the turn and couldn't win on the next turn either as I couldn't find the pieces I needed through Brainstorms and shuffle effects. There's just too much variance.

You can't let situations like that dissuade you from casting it, though - there is some variance to it, but anytime you're 95%+ to win off it it's definitely correct to cast unless you have a 100% option. Especially post board, I cast ad naus fairly frequently to play around surgical.

Sloshthedark

10-29-2012, 06:34 PM

Against MUD, I don't think the deck with this sideboard can win right? There's just not enough discard to keep them off chalices, lodestones and trinispheres and if one sphere effect hits, it's pretty much over.

It was the first time I played with Grim Tutor and it replaced the 3rd Burning Wish. Grim Tutor was extremely strong and won me the games where if it was a Burning Wish, I would have lost. I'm not sure if it's better in the sideboard or in the maindeck though.

Also, I've never hated casting Ad Nauseum more. I hardcast it once this tournament, flipped 20+ cards from 19 life and couldn't hit one lotus petal, LED or dark ritual. I had to end up passing the turn and couldn't win on the next turn either as I couldn't find the pieces I needed through Brainstorms and shuffle effects. There's just too much variance.

Likely not, still not that bad if you win the die roll... CoV/Golem can be played through, they hurt themselves with Tomb and have ~0 card manipulation, if they topdeck Trinisphere... well, it's an acceptable loss, some match-ups are simply not favorable +dislike 0 bounce SB

I play that configuration too... not sure if I like it that much, not many play control/CB in my meta

sometimes happens... I play AN only when hitting it first 2/3 turns and/or no other option... I found out I even SB it out 4/5 of G2

Dark Ritual

10-31-2012, 06:55 PM

Likely not, still not that bad if you win the die roll... CoV/Golem can be played through, they hurt themselves with Tomb and have ~0 card manipulation, if they topdeck Trinisphere... well, it's an acceptable loss, some match-ups are simply not favorable +dislike 0 bounce SB

I play that configuration too... not sure if I like it that much, not many play control/CB in my meta

sometimes happens... I play AN only when hitting it first 2/3 turns and/or no other option... I found out I even SB it out 4/5 of G2

I only board out ad nauseam against burn occasionally. I never board it out completely, as relying completely on PiF makes you slower and vulnerable to grave hate while AdN just dodges it. Sure there is variance to AdN unlike PiF unless you go with the PiF -> oodles of cantrips play where variance becomes a thing but there are the "oops, I win" scenarios with ad nauseam where you just open up the turn 1 ad nauseam hand and are able to win with it or at least untap and have a really good shot at winning said game. I rarely have this happen with PiF where I'm able to perform a turn 1 past in flames kill as PiF typically requires more setup to be able to win the game for you.

Sloshthedark

10-31-2012, 08:26 PM

I only board out ad nauseam against burn occasionally. I never board it out completely, as relying completely on PiF makes you slower and vulnerable to grave hate while AdN just dodges it. Sure there is variance to AdN unlike PiF unless you go with the PiF -> oodles of cantrips play where variance becomes a thing but there are the "oops, I win" scenarios with ad nauseam where you just open up the turn 1 ad nauseam hand and are able to win with it or at least untap and have a really good shot at winning said game. I rarely have this happen with PiF where I'm able to perform a turn 1 past in flames kill as PiF typically requires more setup to be able to win the game for you.

I don't like it with Dark Confidant and i don't like it while having additional 2-3 4CC storm spells in, that leaves me with mirror+other combo and some on play SB scenarios when Bobs are not good.

aaronm678

11-01-2012, 08:06 AM

I don't like it with Dark Confidant and i don't like it while having additional 2-3 4CC storm spells in, that leaves me with mirror+other combo and some on play SB scenarios when Bobs are not good.

What decks is Bob even good enough to bring in? Not RUG, miracles, or maverick certainly. I like Bob as much as anyone, but it's pretty hard to justify playing in a meta where Stoneblade and BUG aren't really things anymore.

Mon,Goblin Chief

11-01-2012, 09:31 AM

Played a list very close to Inaki's (great work, btw, really enjoyed Google-reading the article!) in our weekly mini-tournament yesterday.
List:

4 Delta
4 Misty
2 Sea
1 Volc
1 Trop
2 Island
1 Swamp

4 DRit
4 CRit
4 Petal
4 LED

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Probe

4 Duress
4 Therapy

4 Infernal
2 Grim
1 Tendrils
1 AdN
1 PiF

SB:
4 Dread of Night
4 Xantid Swarm
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Echoing Truth
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Bayou

Round one beat Cascade Bant,

G1 he plays Top but I empty his hand of blue cards with a ton of discard before having to go for AdN. I brick on fast mana until I'm down to two life (finally finding the second CRit), can't find an LED and topdeck a land next turn, keeping me from getting hellbent (kept one of AdN because I was mana-light). Luckily all he has for pressure is a SFM and I Past in Flames him next turn.
G2 He has turn 2 Counterbalance but no Top and after running a few spells into blind CB flips I finally have him with a Top on Top (just cracked a Fetch into it) and no cards in hand. Cabal Ritual, LED and Infernal Tutor get there.

Round two against UW Tempo
G1 I win after he Forces a post-Probe Therapy leaving him without any other interaction (I have the Duress anyway) and I Brainstorm without a shuffle effect to hit any tutor to instant win. Natural Storm with a bunch of Probes, cantrips and Rituals into Grim Tutor.
G2 He has turn one Delver which doesn't flip for a turn. I drop Xantid on turn 2 to avoid Daze and he flips his Delver with a Stifle (obv...). Given that I'm not missing any landdrops and shuffled away Dark Ritual plus Infernal Tutor with my last Brainstorm, the god-hand gets there. I take out the Stifle with a Swarm-attack, crack a fetch afterwards, Duress his last relevant card and win with two Rituals, LED, Pif and Infernal in hand.

Round three against Merfolk
G1 I can go for a relatively safe turn two AdN but decide to wait because I have Duress, Therapy and the means to win with PiF a turn or two later and hey, what could he do? He drops Standstill... Two turns later my Duress gets stopped, Therapy resolves and shows a hand full of lands. PiF it is.
G2 He forces my first two swarms and puts on a sizable clock, leaving me at six the turn I can win with Grim Tutor->Pif. 1 life short.
G3 I have a solid though land-heavy hand but no protection. He drops turn 3 Chalice @1 and a Tormod's Crypt. Seeing as I won't get to cast any more protection, I go for Petal, Infernal, LED Dark Ritual (countered by Chalice) Empty the Warrens. He has Master of the Pearl Trident, Mutavault and Vials in another Lord when I attack so he only takes seven. From there on out he drops another Chalice on 0 but doesn't draw any more pressure. I make landdrops and stockpile cards, including an Infernal for a Lotus Petal. When he taps out the turn after that for Chalice @2 both he and the onlookers start saying "man, if you still win that, that'd be the sickest." I casually attack him to 8, cast my five spells into the Chalices and kill him with the natural Tendrils through FoW.

Round four against Punishing Maverick.
G1: I win the roll and kill him on turn two with AdN after he plays a Mom. Could have waited for the turn 3 PiF but didn't want to risk Thalia.
G2: I keep a really weak hand (lands, acceleration, ETruth, Dread of Night) on the logic that the only relevant thing he does is hatebears and the anti-hate should allow me to just topdeck business at some point and win. Dread of Night ends up killing a Mindcensor and a Mom, Teeg gets ETruthed and I kill him with Rituals, tutor and in hand IGG.

As to the list, I didn't have ADs yet, but seeing the Swarms in Inaki's list made me really want to play those again and they were quite brutal. Definitely worth the splash until I get ADs.
I wouldn't want to miss EtW any more, the card just wins so many games at random. I'm actually contemplating just cutting AdN for it (both fill the same roll of "doing something with random early LED hands") but first game people have a ton more removal in so I'm dubious. Postboard I board Empty against most decks in place of the AdN (exceptions include Nic Fit, clockless blue control-decks and Maverick) - that card is just too random and pretty bad postboard against any form of clock plus SB hate.
The sweet thing about Dread of Night is that it allows you to beat those random non-Legendary hatebear plus Mom hands that you'd otherwise have trouble with and setting up dubs isn't really that hard if you can't find another answer for Teeg or Canonist.
IGG feels like it isn't really necessary, but maybe that's just me.
SB Bayou: I love boarding in extra lands against Wasteland-softcounter decks and this casts turn 1 Duress, turn 2 Swarm. Not playing it maindeck because non-blue sources suck to draw.

tl;dr: Deck is insane, need to get Abrupt Decays.

/edit: remembered that I semi-bricked of off AdN R1G1

Tammit67

11-01-2012, 01:25 PM

I finally manage to pick up one Grim tutor, and people are saying two is good also!

Mon,Goblin Chief

11-01-2012, 05:19 PM

I finally manage to pick up one Grim tutor, and people are saying two is good also!

You shouldn't have started testing the list in my article back in spring - then you wouldn't need Grim Tutors now ;p

On a more serious note, the two tutors are good when you want to win rather early (there's a reason I always had a second in the board) but the deck works fine with only one. I still generally board one of them out against decks where I bring in the Swarms and plan to play a long game (basically all blue control/aggro-control decks), keeping a few Probes in the deck. Knowing the opponents hand is just that good.

All that being said, I'm going with the two Grim, eight discard set up for the foreseeable future. Just felt perfect in every game I've played with the list so far. I made the switch after seeing Inaki's list and realizing that a lot of my boarding included getting rid of the Preordains for space reasons anyway and the deck kept working fine with two less cantrips postboard.

Dark Ritual

11-01-2012, 06:21 PM

I don't like it with Dark Confidant and i don't like it while having additional 2-3 4CC storm spells in, that leaves me with mirror+other combo and some on play SB scenarios when Bobs are not good.

You're misbuilding your sideboard if dark confidant is in there right now. Card doesn't cut it against RUG, miracles, or much of anything right now. I absolutely adore bob and wish I had an excuse to play him but right now there is no reason for bob to be in the sideboard.

Yeah I was wondering why you didn't have abrupt decay in your board Mon but that answers that. True highrollers own $175 dollar cards but not 8 dollar cards :wink:

Overall nice report though, liked the game with chalices at 0, 1, and 2. That was great.

Sloshthedark

11-01-2012, 06:42 PM

What decks is Bob even good enough to bring in? Not RUG, miracles, or maverick certainly. I like Bob as much as anyone, but it's pretty hard to justify playing in a meta where Stoneblade and BUG aren't really things anymore.

You have different meta... 0 miracles in mine, Stoneblade present, Threshold quantity~UBG tempo... and Bob vs. Maverick is excellent

@Mon
nice report, I'm personally not a big fan of G lands MD as you give unnecessary information and logically indicates Xantid Swarm to most opponents that do not follow Storm (AD) development

The decklist seems weaker to Canadian Threshold, Don't you miss second ToA in SB?

ad EtW - I also follow EtW>AdN G2 approach and was using a one-of BW, just for the EtW option when AdN is too risky, to enable double Tendrils and to have outs in improbable G1 situations, the sad necessity of AdN inclusion are the all-black hands deck sometimes provides and 1(2)turn window luxury you can't always afford & the card is cool ;)

Mon,Goblin Chief

11-01-2012, 06:54 PM

You have different meta... 0 miracles in mine, Stoneblade present, Threshold quantity~UBG tempo... and Bob vs. Maverick is excellent

@Mon
nice report, I'm personally not a big fan of G lands MD as you give unnecessary information and logically indicates Xantid Swarm to most opponents that do not follow Storm (AD) development

The decklist seems weaker to Canadian Threshold, Don't you miss second ToA in SB?

ad EtW - I also follow EtW>AdN G2 approach and was using a one-of BW, just for the EtW option when AdN is too risky, to enable double Tendrils and to have outs in improbable G1 situations, the sad necessity of AdN inclusion are the all-black hands deck sometimes provides and 1(2)turn window luxury you can't always afford & the card is cool ;)

Green lands MD: It's a single Trop. How often are you honestly gonna see it game 1? I think the possible info for the opponent is much less valuable than the additional SB slot (only a single green source sucks with Swarms because in contrast to the single R for PiF you need to get it early and might need to cast multiple Swarms).

Weaker to Canadian than what? I'm used to playing less discard effects and no Swarms and still being slightly favored against RUG preboard and about even postboard.
I never understood the additional Tendrils anyway, least of all against Canadian. EtW is about a million times better against them than trying to natural Tendrils them twice and the whole "get them to counter my stuff then Tendrils" plan has never really worked for me against capable opponents (either I rip their hand to shreds with discard and win with whatever or they counter my mana while Delver does me in). What am I missing?

I played with the idea of running a single Wish so as to get access to Virtue's Ruin MD against Maverick and have additional bonus options (I ran SB Grim Tutor and 4th Therapy anyway). I think ignoring that psychological crutch and just running the most consistent MD possible with enough room for hate in the board is just better, though.
As for AdN, it probably is a sad necessity for exactly the reasons you mention.

Koby

11-01-2012, 07:00 PM

@Carsten - What do you propose as a sideboard once Abrupt Decay is included?

Sloshthedark

11-01-2012, 07:14 PM

Green lands MD: It's a single Trop. How often are you honestly gonna see it game 1? I think the possible info for the opponent is much less valuable than the additional SB slot (only a single green source sucks with Swarms because in contrast to the single R for PiF you need to get it early and might need to cast multiple Swarms).

Weaker to Canadian than what? I'm used to playing less discard effects and no Swarms and still being slightly favored against RUG preboard and about even postboard.
I never understood the additional Tendrils anyway, least of all against Canadian. EtW is about a million times better against them than trying to natural Tendrils them twice and the whole "get them to counter my stuff then Tendrils" plan has never really worked for me against capable opponents (either I rip their hand to shreds with discard and win with whatever or they counter my mana while Delver does me in). What am I missing?

I played with the idea of running a single Wish so as to get access to Virtue's Ruin MD against Maverick and have additional bonus options (I ran SB Grim Tutor and 4th Therapy anyway). I think ignoring that psychological crutch and just running the most consistent MD possible with enough room for hate in the board is just better, though.
As for AdN, it probably is a sad necessity for exactly the reasons you mention.

As I go through the list again I'm more surprised it's not a Bayou, well I'm not into that all-island thing and would not feel comfortable with just 2 reliably fetchable B and the "just island" hands

simple - to have it in hand, playing previous BW list I found ToA my no.1 wish target (not counting ftw), maybe it's just play style +my 2 PiF list merit; EtW is great but sometimes vs. flipped delver+reach not that much, just sayin'; I dislike Grim tutor vs. threshold but understand your consistency reasons, used to play it too... surely best is which works for you

Mon,Goblin Chief

11-01-2012, 07:39 PM

@Carsten - What do you propose as a sideboard once Abrupt Decay is included?

Probably this:

4 Dread of Night
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Decay
2 CoV
1 Bayou
1 EtW

I'd like the third CoV but I don't want to cut anything else (might go to 3 DoN, 3 CoV after some more testing). If Reanimator and Dredge come out of the woodwork I'll have to figure out how to make room for a few Crypts or Karakas but for the moment I feel ok just relying on Xantid a lot to blank GriselB against Reanimator and hope to race Dredge.

@Sloshthedark: We seem to be playing this deck very differently. I hate having Tendrils in hand. I'll have to experiment with a playstyle closer to yours to learn how to adopt it at will, might help eek out games I can't win with my usual preferences. Second PiF obviously helps with the draw Tendrils plan, too.
As for the Bayou, there are two Seas and a Swamp, which seems like enough B sources, usually. Almost any hand without blue is a mulligan imo, so I want to have an absolute minimum of non-blue lands. I'm fine with the SB Bayou because its a 16th land or comes in for the Swamp.

egosum

11-02-2012, 08:52 AM

@Carsten: Congrats for the tournament. I'm glad to hear you are storming again. I' d rather found IGG was also kinda underwhelming and I'd rahter drop it. But IGG is super sweet in a n aggro enviroment. Also it is a lot better than PiF when you board Cages in, nevertheless this is kinda corner case for some reasons, first is taht when you baord cage in (I mean when I board cages in) is because it s going to win the game by itself giving you enough time to multi tutor chain or ADN (the decks that need tha cage be baorded won't really hurt me much until they do their thing). Furthermore I found that even aggro decks are playing some traps in the board, which makes IGG even weaker. Therefore I think I may give a chance to any other card in the side. But Warrens feels like too narrow, I will side it any time against RUG, but nothing else, I rally don't think it is bonkers against any other deck. Sepcially because I will keep all 3, Tendrils, ADN and PiF, when siding Warrens in, so the natural change will be Grimm Tutor <--> Empty the Warrens, but even this change makes the plan weaker because with Warrens in the deck, the more tutors the better so you can cast it really early. Still not sure, but have to think about it.

Greetings,

Iñaki.-

P.S. In addition, I'm not a big fan of Dread of night. They are almost auto win against G/W but the decreasing number of those in conjunction with reanimator being a major threat that should be solved I'd rahter use those hate slots for grave hate (I don't really think dredge is a big deal, so yes I'm usinghappily 7-8 sideboard slots against reanimator, the match is so unbalanced...). If you are worried agasint G/W too just splash some Karakas in the board as hybrid hate (and when siding treat them always as spells.